2282021 39(3): 228-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 LECTURERS’ ACCOUNTS OF THEIR CURRICULUM PRACTICES AT A UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ABSTRACT This article focuses on lectures’ accounts of their curriculum practices at a University of Technology (UoT). Based on semi- structured interviews with lecturers, it examines their engagement with the curriculum and the practices they adopt to ensure student learning. I draw on Bourdieu’s (1990) concepts of field, reflexivity, illusio and doxa to highlight the lecturers’ ability to negotiate the university’s field and the reflexive stances they adopt to change and adapt their teaching practices. The article highlights the importance of cultivating reflexivity in academic staff development programmes and the need to strengthen lecturers’ reflexivity at UoTs. The article’s findings show the tension lecturers experience between teaching and research and the subordinate role of research in their curriculum practices. The article discusses the lecturers’ commitment to the curriculum’s values and shows that these factors were crucial in developing lecturer agency and reflexivity. The lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching and pedagogical strategies they utilised are discussed as a part of their curriculum practices. These were critical in establishing their agency and in producing innovative curriculum practices. My research shows the significance of utilising information communication technologies (ICTs) by the lecturers as a pedagogical strategy in the enactment of the curriculum. Keywords: Curriculum practices; lecturer agency; reflexivity; teaching and research. 1. INTRODUCTION Lecturers at the University of Technology (UoT) have an important role in preparing students for professions and vocations; their beliefs and values are central to the curriculum. This article explores the curriculum practices of lecturers and the strategies and positions they embarked on to enact the curriculum. It is based on a case study of lecturers in the Faculty of Business Management Sciences (FBMS), which explores how lecturers adapt and enrich their curriculum and teaching and learning approaches to strengthen their curriculum practices. This article builds on the extant literature on curriculum development in higher education institutions. In this respect, Soudien (2010) focuses on the politics of the curriculum and the external AUTHOR: Dr Najwa Norodien-Fataar1 AFFILIATION: 1Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39. i3.17 e-ISSN 2519-593X Perspectives in Education 2021 39(3): 228-241 PUBLISHED: 16 September 2021 RECEIVED: 08 March 2021 ACCEPTED: 06 May 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8286-8089 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2292021 39(3): 229-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices political dimensions of knowledge of the curriculum by analysing the history of curriculum development. He highlights how the South African curriculum emerged from the apartheid context into the post-apartheid context, signalling the importance of the social-political contexts in understanding curriculum development. Shay (2016), in turn, spotlights the curriculum’s knowledge bases and argues that there are different forms of knowledge embedded in the curriculum; theoretical, practical and a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge. Shay (2016) suggests that paying closer attention to the curriculum’s knowledge logics would give us insight into what should be privileged in the curriculum. At the same time, debates about the fourth industrial revolution and its influence on curriculum and pedagogical practices at institutions indicate the need for curriculum relevance in higher education institutions (Fataar, 2020, Marwala, 2020). Debates on curriculum development at UoTs focus on recurriculation processes and lecturers’ crucial role in developing diploma and postgraduate diploma courses (Scholtz, 2019). Scholtz (2019) draws attention to lecturers’ agency while participating in recurriculation. She focuses on lecturers’ consultation with industry stakeholders and how they developed a situational analysis and benchmarking of their programmes. She discusses how they participated in selecting and classifying knowledge for the intended postgraduate diplomas. Luckett (2001) and Quinn (2019) identify lecturers’ agents in curriculum processes, specifically their role in conceptualising, planning and enacting the curriculum. The integration of information communication technology (ICT) in the curriculum has been a vital part of the higher education landscape. Ng’ambi et al. (2016) discuss staff development initiatives at higher education institutions that focused on ICT use for teaching and learning. Tshuma (2019) illustrates the close link between lecturers’ curriculum values and integrating technology in their teaching. She argues that lecturer agency was key to understanding ICT use among lecturers at higher education institutions. Quinn and Vorster (2019) remind us of the crucial role of lecturers’ beliefs about the nature of their discipline in curriculum decision making. This article focuses on the lecturers’ perspectives on their curriculum and the practices they produce to ensure student learning. It concentrates on selected lecturers’ interpretations of their curriculum as they negotiate and mediate the university “field”. Drawing on Bourdieu (1990), “field” is used in this article to refer to the social spaces that make an institution environment wherein situations, power relations and people’s practices converge. The lecturers’ deliberations about their curriculum practices are based on: (1) their views about their role as academics at a UoT in terms of research and teaching; (2) their values and objectives of their curriculum (3) their beliefs about their teaching and the pedagogical strategies they employ to enhance their teaching. Curriculum practices are defined in this article as the systematic organisation of teaching and learning based on practices to improve student learning (Morrow, 2007). This article’s focus on lecturers’ curriculum practices should be understood in the context of curriculum renewal and staff development in higher education institutions. 2. CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS OF THE STUDY The University of Technology (UoT) that forms the study’s context is in the Western Cape province of South Africa and offers diploma and degree courses and work-integrated learning. The university attracts mainly Black1 and Coloured students and offers professional 1 Black and Coloured refers to Apartheid designated categories. These categories are congruent with university statistics. http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2302021 39(3): 230-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Perspectives in Education 2021: 39(3) programmes and a work-integrated learning focus. The university has lower entry-level requirements compared to those required for university degree programmes. The university has six faculties and a number of support centres such as the teaching and learning centre, the education technology centre, the student support centre and a community engagement centre to support lecturers and students in their teaching and learning programmes. Six lecturers who are part of the FBMS at the UoT were purposely selected for this study based on their active engagement with the academic support programmes such as the tutorial support programmes and academic literacy programmes. The FBMS is the largest faculty at the UoT. It offers a range of business courses such as accounting, marketing, hospitality and paralegal courses. All the participants teach at first-year level. Participant A, the internal auditing lecturer, qualified as a Chartered Accountant and worked in the private sector for seventeen years before being appointed as a lecturer at the UoT. Participant B, the marketing lecturer, has as his highest qualification a BTech degree and worked for a short period at the university in a marketing capacity. He has been working at the university for seven years as a marketing lecturer for the Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP). The ECP is supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training and aims to improve students’ graduation and throughput rates in South African universities. Students in the ECP receive support with augmented lectures and tutorials. Participant C, a lecturer in Human Resource Management, has three years of teaching experience, a Master’s degree in Industrial Relations and worked at another university before coming to the UoT. Participant D, the Economics lecturer, was part of the old technikon before the UoT was established and has a long history of working at the UoT. Her highest qualification is a Master’s degree in Commerce, and she is pursuing her PhD in economics. Participant E, the Consumer Behaviour lecturer, has a Master’s degree, worked in the private sector for nine years and is currently registered for his PhD in Education. Participant F, the Computer Literacy lecturer, has a PhD in Engineering and worked in the private sector for two and a half years. This brief profile provides a background to locate the lecturers’ position in the field of the university. 3. FIELD ANALYSIS AND REFLEXIVITY This article uses field theory and the concept of reflexivity to explain the lecturers’ responsiveness to their curriculum and the practices they employ to ensure effective teaching and learning. Studies by Kloot (2009; 2014) explore the value of Bourdieu’s (1990) framework in higher education, suggesting that such a framework provides insight into universities’ reform trajectories. Bourdieu (1990) regards university education as a field with a high degree of autonomy. According to Bourdieu (1990), its values and behaviours are relatively independent of broader economic and political forces. Maton (2005) elaborates on the notion of autonomy by distinguishing between positional and relational autonomy to explain the degree of autonomy in the higher education field. “Positional autonomy” refers to the extent to which lecturers in higher education look inwards towards their positions as autonomous academic professionals to develop their research and academic identities. In contrast, according to Maton (2005:699), relational autonomy refers to relations with fields outside of higher education such as the economy and the employment sector and the extent to which these relations impact the control that lecturers have in determining their academic roles. http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2312021 39(3): 231-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 97) define the concept of “field” as: A network, or configuration, of objective relations between positions. These positions are objectively defined, in their existence and in the determinations they impose upon their occupants, agents or institutions, by their present and potential situation (situs) in the structure of the distribution of species of power (or capital) whose possession commands access to the specific profits that are at stake in the field, as well as by their objective relation to other positions. “Field” refers to the social space as made up of institutions, situations, power relations and people’s practices. Bourdieu (1990) regards field as a social space rather than merely a physical geographic entity (Lingard, 2013:9). The “field” in this article refers to the functions and operations of the university’s educational support programme, including the courses that the selected lecturers teach, their relationship with students, the teaching and learning support services and the policies that constitute the university’s activities. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) compare a field in this sense to a game guided by rules and field positions specific to their context. Bourdieu (1990) suggests that people use various strategies to maintain or improve their position in the field. Comparing the field and the field positions of players is useful as it allows me to understand lecturers’ perspectives on their curriculum practices at the UoT. Jenkins (2002:53) points out that “the field is the crucial mediating context wherein external factors – changing circumstances – are brought to bear upon individual practice and institutions”. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 19) states that: A field is not simply a dead structure, a set of “empty spaces” as in Althusserian Marxism, but a space of play which exists as such only to the extent that players enter into it who believe in and actively pursue the prizes it offers. “Field” is thus a dynamic space in which individuals can advance their interests and concerns, allowing them to contribute to shaping the field. Bourdieu (1990) suggests that individuals have an “interest” in their game. Grenfell (2014: 152) explains that the concepts of “interest” and later the concept of “illusio” were used by Bourdieu (1990) to signify the circumstances individuals find themselves in to “define and improve their position”. Bourdieu (1998: 76–77) suggests that “illusio is the fact of being caught up in and by the game, of believing the game is ‘worth the candle’, or, more simply, that playing is worth the effort”. Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of field and illusio allows me to understand the lecturers’ mediation of their curriculum practices to enable effective teaching. I discuss below how the lecturers are “taken in by the game” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992:8) and invest their time and energy in shaping the field of higher education. The relation between individuals and the field of higher education is thus relevant to focus on curriculum practices. I employ the notion of reflexivity to explain how the lecturers mediate the academic field of the university. The concept of reflexivity is a core dimension of Bourdieu’s (1990) theory and refers to the ability: To make explicit the two-way relationship between the objective structures of the intellectual, academic, and social-scientific fields and the incorporated practices (i.e. habitus) of those operating in the field (Deer, 2012: 202). http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2322021 39(3): 232-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Perspectives in Education 2021: 39(3) Reflexivity refers to the dynamic interaction between individuals and the social structures with which they engage. In this light, reflexivity emphasises that individuals are acutely aware of and recognise their position and agency in relation to a social context. Reflexivity serves as a vital function in higher education institutions and illuminates the practices that individuals establish and their actions in a particular context and field. However, Bourdieu cautions that reflexivity cannot be an exercise carried out solely on an individual basis. It has to be a common and shared effort aimed at making explicit the “unthought categories, perceptions, theories, and structures that underpin any pre-reflexive grasp of the social environment” (Deer, 2012: 198). Belluigi (2012) suggests that reflexivity is distinct from “reflection-in-action”. She means that the latter focuses on a separation between the subject and the object and the decontextualised knower. However, reflexivity refers to the relation between the individuals’ (subjects) active engagement with the social contexts (objects). Individuals are regarded as integral to the social phenomena rather than objective participants. Schirato and Webb (2002: 255) distinguish between practical knowledge (le sens pratique), which refers to a “feel for the game” while reflexivity – or reflexive knowledge – is an extension and development of this practical sense away from automatic or habituated practice to a more aware and evaluative relation to oneself and one’s contexts. Distinguishing practical knowledge from reflexivity indicates that reflexivity is more than just everyday strategies that individuals would take in the field of higher education. Reflexivity refers to individuals’ subjective engagement and practices in relation to the field of higher education. The lecturers’ pedagogical practices and interventions “can ultimately result in the change of the habitus and to “a more competent navigation of a particular context” (Schirato & Webb, 2002: 256). Bourdieu (1990: 86) defines habitus as “ways of standing, speaking, walking, and thereby of feeling and thinking, refers to something historical, it is linked to individual history”. Habitus is a concept developed by Bourdieu (1990) to understand human actions in relation to their social contexts. Schirato and Webb (2002: 256) make the crucial point that “agency is always the result of a coming together of the habitus and the specific cultural fields and contexts in which agents “find themselves, in both senses of the expression”. The lecturers’ curriculum practices in the field of the UoT allow me to examine how they engage and interact with the university field and the reflexive deliberations they draw on to establish transformative practices. Their transformative practices refer to the practices lecturers establish that leads to change and shifts in the university field. Another concept I employ to explain the lecturers’ responsiveness at the UoT is the concept of doxa. Bourdieu (1990) refers to doxa as the “pre-reflexive, shared, but unquestioned opinions and perceptions conveyed within and by relatively autonomous entities – fields – which determine ‘natural’ practices and attitudes via internalised ‘sense of limits’ and habitus of the agents in those fields” (Deer, 2014: 115). Bourdieu (1990) suggests that doxa is the “natural beliefs” and opinions linked to a field and habitus. Deer (2014:117) states that “doxa is embedded in the field while helping to define and characterise that field”. Similarly, Kloot (2009: 472.) suggests that doxa is individuals’ beliefs of “how things should be”. Fillies and Fataar (2015) show in their study of rural learners that “doxa” was instrumental in shaping their attitudes to learning practices and motivating them to stay in school. The concept of doxa is significant as it allows one to understand the common sense beliefs and perceptions that lecturers hold about their university work. http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2332021 39(3): 233-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices 4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY The study is based on a qualitative, interpretive methodological approach concerned with understanding social phenomena through people’s meanings (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). A qualitative approach was suitable as it allowed me to engage extensively with participants to gain an in-depth understanding of lecturers’ curriculum practices (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2017). The study endeavoured to understand lecturers’ curriculum practices by considering the “thick descriptions” and perspectives of the participants’ constructions. This allowed me to capture and interpret the constructions that they provided, which, in turn, enabled me to generate particular insights about their practices. The article is based on a qualitative study that focused on lecturers’ interpretations and responsiveness to their curriculum practices at a UoT. A case study approach (Yin, 2018) was applied to capture the lecturers’ current curriculum practices. Yin (2018: 15) suggests that a case study relies on multiple sources of evidence especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident. Lecturers in the FBMS who sought regular academic support from the university’s Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) were invited via email to participate in the study. The email communication described the research project and included the sample interview questions. Six lecturers were purposively selected to participate in semi-structured interviews of one and a half to two hours. The purposive selection was based on the lecturers’ regular engagement with CHED. Lecturers were asked permission to record the interviews and were assured of confidentiality. The semi-structured interviews enabled me to ask for clarifications and elicit deeper responses about their curriculum practices. Participation in the study was voluntary and lecturers could withdraw at any stage. Each participant was requested to sign a consent form to acknowledge their participation in the project. The purpose of the interviews was to understand the lecturers’ perceptions of their curriculum and the pedagogical processes they embark on to ensure student success. These lecturers provided information-rich data that enabled me to gain an in-depth understanding of how they mediated the institution’s academic field to improve students’ learning (Patton, 2015). Data were analysed using ATLAS.ti. Information was coded and categorised into themes. I followed a process of analytical induction, which involved correlating the data with Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of field and concepts of reflexivity. The themes that emerged from the data were (1) the tension between teaching and research at a UoT (2) Lecturers’ deliberations of the values and objectives of their curriculum and (3) Lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching and the pedagogical strategies they employ to enhance their teaching This study was supported by an institutional research initiative called the Research and Innovation for Teaching and Learning (RIFTAL) fund. All ethics protocols were maintained during the study. My position as a senior lecturer and Head of Department in the Teaching and Learning Centre’s Student Learning section was significant. I am an academic practitioner in the CHED, which is located outside of the interviewees’ faculty. I offer curriculum development support to Faculty lecturers. I was aware that my position could influence the type of responses lecturers gave. I, therefore, took time to probe their answers, asking them for explanations when they were giving formulaic responses. To provide rich and detailed descriptions, I used the participants own words extensively in the article and provided extensive quotations to indicate their point of view. This was done to reduce the bias and subjectivity that I might have during the interviewing and interpretation of the data (Patton, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2342021 39(3): 234-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Perspectives in Education 2021: 39(3) 5. FINDINGS 5.1 The tension between research and teaching in relation to the curriculum This section focuses on the lecturers’ views of their role as academics in a UoT, including their responsibilities with respect to teaching and learning, research and publication as well as community engagement. According to Garraway and Winberg (2019), unlike in the past, academic staff are pressured to conduct research and be responsive to the fourth industrial revolution at the University of Technology. My data show the difficulty the lecturers’ experienced performing their roles as academics at the UoT in relation to research. All the selected participants acknowledged the crucial role of industry and the professional bodies in their curriculum. However, the data show that the lecturers expressed a tension between their teaching and research roles at the UoT. Participant A emphasised her teaching role and commented that it was “difficult to do both research and teaching, with the load you have”. Participant B felt that: As a teacher, I do engage in reflective practice and action research. I wouldn’t, therefore, consider myself a researcher. I struggle to get into research because there are real needs on the ground all the time that I have to deal with. Participant C, however, referred to research and teaching as an ideal and commented that it was “not practical” because “the teaching and the admin behind teaching take up much of your time”. Similarly, Participant D commented that, I think teaching is a must. I think even our higher staff members, our HODs and that, should be teaching, or involved in some kind of education thing like developing a qualification or something to do with teaching and learning, put it that way. I do believe that research is essential and that we all should be striving towards that. Conducting research was thus seen by participant D, as something lecturers should try to do. Participant E, on the other hand, made the critical point: So for me, I see researching problems in the field of marketing as being what then informs what I teach. He was actively engaged in supervising Master’s students in his department and served on the research committee in the FBMS. Participant F also believed that teaching and research were significant aspects of the UoT, but felt that he could not balance the demands of teaching and research and commented: You find that at one point maybe your class is suffering, then when you try and do more again and you focus too much on your classes, and then the research is sort of affected as well. So there is always – one needs to find that balance. Most participants in this study intended to complete higher qualifications and were willing to engage in professional staff development programmes. The data show that the lecturers struggle to mediate between conducting research and teaching. The lecturers’ statements http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2352021 39(3): 235-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices show that they believe in the ideal of conducting research; however, they struggled to strike a balance between the demands that the teaching and research dimensions of their work made on their work identities. The selected lecturers’ comments indicate that they realise that they need to participate in research and teaching as a strategy to “play the game” in the university’s field. The data clearly show that the participants struggle to include research as part of their role at the university. They regard research as secondary to their curriculum practices. The data illustrate that their aspiration to do research remains high (White, Carvalho & Riordan, 2011). 5.2 Lecturers’ deliberations of the values and objectives of their curriculum This section focuses on the lecturers’ perspectives on the objectives and values that are an important part of their teaching. Quinn (2019) points out that what academics value in a field is significant, as it underscores the curriculum choices they make at the university. Participant A, the internal auditing lecturer, felt that values such as honesty, integrity and independence were “codes” that internal auditors needed to live by. She emphasised the importance of teaching students about “the structures and the processes” of the organisation and “how the organisation is managed and directed and controlled”. The data show that the lecturers made concerted attempts to gain a better understanding of their students. Participant A felt that understanding the students were crucial. She thought that some lecturers could do more to connect with the students they teach. She commented: So, it is really about, do we actually, bottom line, understand our students and their context? I am not saying solve all their problems because that’s not what we are here for. Participant B, the Marketing lecturer, considered “taking the initiative” as significant in marketing and suggested that, As a marketing person, you are the one that comes up with the ideas, and you’re the one that kind of pull the teams together because you’re the one that understands the consumer. He also suggested that creativity and innovation were key elements and added that students need to have a problem-solving type of personality “with a creative spin”. He described marketers’ role as “we create campaigns, get customers on board, and build new relationships”. Participant B recognised students’ poor socio-economic status, the poor schooling contexts, and that some lecturers were culturally distinct from students and struggled to establish connections with them. He commented that: Students have changed over the years. Most of my students are Xhosa speaking, some of them from Cape Town, many of them from the Eastern Cape. Some of them are Afrikaans and English speaking as well. So culturally, my students are different from me; most of them are different from me, which is at times challenging because I don’t know how to engage – but I’m trying to grow in that area so that I’m able to get to know them on kind of, yes, to know their culture. He also commented on the university and said that, http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2362021 39(3): 236-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Perspectives in Education 2021: 39(3) Our structures don’t – the way our education or curriculum is set out doesn’t match with the way they’ve learned how to study and do things, or we don’t have the resources or the understanding that is required in order to help them kind of effectively bridge that divide. So maybe we have the deficit and not them. Participant C, the Human Resources lecturer, suggested that critical thinking, good researchers and data collection are crucial in Human Resources courses for her students. She regarded “being more perceptive” as a vital attribute for human resource management students. Participant C also made the essential point that training students to use online technological systems is imperative. She commented that “now everything is online. So, you would direct an employee to say go and apply online for leave. So, we want them also to be computer literate to understand these new dynamics”. Participant D suggested that in Economics, values such as “ethics” are crucial for students. She commented that The idea is always to teach the student, let’s do what is right for society. It is about just informing students about our responsibility to the greater society, not just to ourselves, and we need to look after the poor, and that’s part of a big module in Economics. We need to act ethically in those endeavours. So, it is a lot of ethics; it is a lot of helping them make the right decision. That is why I don’t believe that any qualification that comes out of the Faculty of Business should not have Economics. Participant F commented that efficiency and accuracy were vital for the computer literacy class he taught. He suggested that students needed to be “accurate and have good typing skills”. He stressed the importance of this subject for all students entering the UoT. He commented that “all students must be able to do this in order to go on to make your studies more efficient, and you have to be able to be computer literate”. The data above show the values identified by each lecturer in their respective subjects. The participants of the study identified values such as fairness and honesty as crucial to their respective courses. They describe their students as initiative takers, problem solvers, and technologically savvy. They show an interest in their students’ socio-economic backgrounds and the challenges they face with their courses. According to Bourdieu, such views would be characterised as their “illusio”, referring to their interest and aspirations in getting involved in and playing the academic game. This “illusio” keeps the lecturers motivated to hold on to their academic beliefs while actively pursuing their university work. Bourdieu suggests that the “illusio” in the field keeps individuals interested in pursuing the projects and forms the basis of agents’ practice in a field. However, Bourdieu and Waquant (1992: 39) alert us to the “tendency for subjects [the lecturers] from certain fields to abstract practices from their contexts, and see them as ideas to be contemplated, rather than problems to be addressed or solved”. In other words, lecturers might hold strong theoretical views about the values of their curriculum; however, they might not give practical expression to their ideas. The curriculum’s values and objectives need to be explicit to engage with the UoT, many of whom are first-generation students. In the next section, I focus on the lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching at the UoT and the pedagogical strategies they employ to enhance their teaching. http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2372021 39(3): 237-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices 5.3 Lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching and the pedagogical strategies they employ to enhance their teaching The lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching reflect their aspirations about their teaching at a UoT. Participant A, the Internal Auditing lecturer, attributes the internal auditing course to the embodiment of skills and practices as a crucial aspect of her teaching. She regards the university as a technikon that provides technical and practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge. Participant A identified three main areas in her lectures as essential in internal auditing: process, principles and skills critical for auditing students. She saw her role as “enabling, facilitating” and expressed the need to “tap into understanding your [students] to get your [students] to become better than what you are”. She commented that many of her students will be entering the public sector and will be expected to “manage an internal audit function”. Her pedagogical strategies focused extensively on group work. She learnt about group work dynamics from her students. She suggested that “you cannot force relationships, and you cannot force people to put in the effort”. Her comment shows her commitment to fostering relationships among students and managing group work strategies among diverse students. Besides group work, participant A regularly used information communication technologies (ICTs) such as Blackboard and added five-minute video clips to her Blackboard platform. She also used cell phones and Google in her classroom as a strategy to engage with her students. Participant B taught Marketing to first-year students on the Extended Curriculum Programme. He stated that he adopted action research and reflective approaches and stressed the importance of “student-centric teaching-oriented learning” in his teaching. He regarded Marketing as an “abstract, creative and scientific subject”. He used innovative pedagogical strategies such as video-recorded screencasts as a teaching tool and commented: A screencast is when you just see my computer screen and my PowerPoint presentation, for example, and you hear my voice. So, all my concepts from the textbook that students need to know have been screencasts in that way, and it is available to the students. Participant B utilised blogs to encourage writing skills among the marketing students. He also used social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube to get the students to engage with the curriculum content. Participant D regards Economics as a crucial science in which all FBMS students need a good grounding before graduation. She created online videos for her students. She commented that the videos are designed to encourage students to self-study and take responsibility for their learning. Participant E was concerned about decoloniality and what that would mean for Consumer Behaviour as one of her teaching subjects. He stated that he was busy with a multilingual project to address those concerns. Participant E felt that he needed to provide his students with additional learning materials, which he made available on Blackboard. He also refers his students to YouTube to augment his teaching. He explained that: They [There] are videos that demonstrate the concepts of learning Pavlov’s theories, or it is about Pavlov himself. So I get things from operant conditioning, Skinner, I get something from the Big Bang Theory, so I got a little clip of two or three minutes long where the actors are using operant conditioning. http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2382021 39(3): 238-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Perspectives in Education 2021: 39(3) Some of the lecturer interviewees’ use of short videos shows that the lecturers were using augmenting strategies to enhance their curriculum delivery. Their approaches to teaching went beyond the traditional talk and chalk methods in favour of technology-enhanced learning. These lecturers felt that they had a better chance of improving student learning by supplementing their curriculum with ICTs. They consulted with educational technology support lecturers in the university’s Centre for Educational Technology about using digital technology to enhance their teaching. Participant C links her teaching to industry. She stressed the importance of providing tutorial support to students. She believed that her teaching approaches should enable students to be more curious and more knowledgeable about labour law and policies. Participant F taught computer literacy to all first year FBMS students and emphasised that practise and consistency are vital to student learning in his curriculum. He relied on peer tutors and peer support as a strategy to improve students’ computer literacy competence. Participant C and Participant F used tutorial support as a teaching strategy and accessed the tutorial support training at the CHED to employ the tutors. The lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching and the pedagogical strategies indicate their reflexive capacity as they had to connect with structures within the university field to enhance their teaching. The lecturers’ discourses about their student-centric approaches to curriculum delivery indicate their commitment to improving their teaching approaches. These discourses demonstrate what Bourdieu refers to as the “doxa” of lecturers. Bourdieu suggests that doxa is the “natural beliefs” and opinions linked to a field and habitus. Deer (2014) asserts that doxa is embedded in the field by defining and characterising it. The “doxa” of the participants in this study was significant as it influenced their teaching approaches and motivated them to develop innovative pedagogies. The lecturers’ pedagogical strategies illustrate their attempt to make the curriculum more accessible to students through various innovative pedagogical practices. Their strategies also show that there are conditions for reflexivity necessary before lecturers can effect change. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 41) make the crucial point that, [t]hose fields [institutions] which tend to encourage and reward a reflexive habitus through the institutionalising of a reflexive disposition in mechanisms of training, dialogue, and critical evaluation have the potential to produce reflexive knowledge and reflexive subjects. Institutional structures such as academic staff development programmes are thus crucial in cultivating and developing reflexive lecturers at the UoT. Simultaneously, the lecturers’ assertions about their beliefs signal their capacity to establish their agency in the university field and their willingness to transform their curriculum and introduce new practices. Strengthening lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching through dialogue, discussion, training and debate are vital in developing the type of reflexive capacity to engage in curriculum transformation. 6. CONCLUSION This article focused on the lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices at a UoT. Bourdieu’s (1990) concepts of field, reflexivity, illusio and doxa were used to spotlight the lecturers’ agency and capacity to adopt reflexive dispositions as they enact the curriculum. The article examined the tension lecturers experienced between teaching and research. It showed that research was less important to the curriculum practices of lecturers at the UoT. This has implications http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 2392021 39(3): 239-241 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i3.17 Norodien-Fataar Lecturers’ accounts of their curriculum practices for the development of the curriculum at the UoT and the curriculum choices lecturers make concerning research and the undergraduate curriculum. The challenge for lecturers at the UoT would be to uphold their autonomy within higher education institutions by actively engaging in disciplinary research. Their research would inform the higher education academy and the professional bodies who play a crucial role in contributing to the curriculum at UoTs. The article highlighted the lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching, such as the student- centric approaches, action research methodologies and creation of multilingual glossaries. It argued that these teaching beliefs were an essential part of lecturers’ agency and their ability to introduce new and innovative teaching practices. The article also focused on the pedagogical strategies lecturers adopted as part of their curriculum practices. I showed that the use of ICTs was primarily used as an innovative pedagogical strategy. I suggest a need for critical engagement in the use of ICTs and the pedagogical strategies lecturers employ in their teaching. Structures and policies need to be created within the UoT to enable more robust discussions and debates on ICTs in the context of decolonisation and the transformation of higher education practices. Critical questions need to be asked about the accessibility of the ICT tools to all students and how effective they are for learning. UoTs, I suggest, should create the conditions for dialogue and engagement among the lecturers to enable discussions about the pedagogical strategies lecturers use to address the students who mostly come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. My data show that lecturers’ reflexive capacity is crucial in curriculum development processes. It is therefore important that universities actively cultivate reflexivity among their lecturers as part of their professional development. REFERENCES Babbie, E. & Mouton, J. 2001. The practice of social research. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Belluigi, D.Z. 2012. Provoking ethical relationships. In L. 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