Browsing by Author "Du Preez, Petro"

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    Dialogue as facilitation strategy : infusing the classroom with a culture of human rights
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008-12) Du Preez, Petro; Roux, Cornelia; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Curriculum Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation the proposals made by the Department of Education towards the infusion of a culture of human rights and using dialogue as a facilitation strategy are problematised. It is argued that the lack of professional development programmes to assist educators in dealing with these proposals is one of the reasons why the infusion of a culture of human rights and dialogue as a facilitation strategy have not transpired as desired. Another apparent reason for the non-realisation of these ideals is that the classroom is not generally seen as an ethical community that has the propensity to anthropomorphise the ideal of infusing a culture of human rights through dialogue. The main focus of this enquiry was therefore to propose a normative theory of dialogue as a facilitation strategy as constitutive to the infusion of a culture of human rights in the context of an ethical community, aiming towards applying this theory in the form of an intervention research programme for selected in-service educators in the Mafikeng/Mmabatho area. The application assisted in determining the viability of the programme, specifically in terms of its theoretical underpinning, and the possibility of further developing it for the purpose of professional development of in-service educators beyond the scope of this target group. The theoretical underpinning of the intervention research programme consisted of a normative theory of dialogue as facilitation strategy characterised by: providing a dialogic stimulus, allowing for moments of deconstruction, critique and reconstruction, and finishing with debriefing and reflection. With regard to the human rights components, the focus was more on the infusion of a culture of human rights on a moral level than on an epistemological level. The intervention research process revealed how diverse groups of educator-participants responded to the intervention research programme. In addition, the research process demonstrated how and why the intervention research process could serve as a possible methodological framework for the design and development of professional development that is inclusive to a variety of education stakeholders. From this study it seems that the participating educators approved of and assimilated the intervention research programme and its underlying theory, albeit in different stages of the research process and with different concerns in mind. The work presented in this dissertation contributes firstly to a refined understanding of dialogue as a facilitation strategy in the South African context and secondly to an understanding of the frequently used notion of infusing the classroom with a culture of human rights in terms of its moral significance. Finally, it also focuses on and addresses the challenge of educator development and the organisation of facilitation strategies that are required to prevent human rights from being assimilated in inept educational paradigms.
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    Facilitating human rights values across outcomes-based education and Waldorf education curricula
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005-12) Du Preez, Petro; Roux, C. D.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The facilitation of human rights values might be considered a means to rethink and redefine values education in South Africa. This study aimed at determining how human rights values were addressed in the context of independent Waldorf Education and government initiated outcomes-based education in South Africa, and how educators facilitated these values in various circumstances. In exploring the philosophies, theories and practices of these education models against the background of paradigmatic and post-paradigmatic philosophies in support of the socially constructive curriculum theory, important notions were highlighted that have preceded, and might follow, the facilitation of human rights values. The epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies of the emancipatory paradigm and postparadigmatic framework appeared to provide appropriate philosophical departure points regarding the facilitation of human rights values. This study anticipated the theoretical clarification of the concept human rights values and included a discussion on the importance of these values in various school contexts. Values identified from the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001), that were also present in the Curriculum: Waldorf Schools in South Africa (1995), were discussed as possible human rights values. Empirical research was conducted to explore how human rights values were attended to in good practice scenarios in order to provide insight into the questions posed regarding the facilitation of human rights values. Through systematic ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews it appeared that in both school contexts human rights values were more frequently addressed in incidental situations than in formal curriculum contents. This is interesting seeing that the outcomes-based education model has a number of documents to guide the facilitation of human rights values within formal curriculum contents, whereas the Waldorf approach has no such supportive documents. One might question the value and influence of numerous documents if basic knowledge that is required for the meaningful interpretation of such documents is not communicated from the outset. Moreover, it became evident that since Waldorf educators are adequately trained in Anthroposophy, the philosophy to which Waldorf schools adhere, they deal with curriculum matters such as socially constructing a curriculum more effectively. The training of outcomes-based education educators can be questioned regarding the philosophy, theory and methodology of outcomes-based education in view of the hasty implementation of this new model for government schools. As a result of this hurried process, educators of outcomes-based education are experiencing numerous uncertainties when they have to manage curriculum matters such as socially constructing a curriculum. Recommendations and related examples were provided after the completion of the study. This included, among others, the notions of dialogically facilitating human rights values to promote learners' understanding of their rights, and the rights of others; to transform incidental facilitation of human rights values into worthwhile teaching-learning experiences; to use human resources - including learners - to convey human rights values; and to focus educators' training (both in-service and pre-service) toward the inclusion of human rights values and promoting an understanding of socially constructing a curriculum. The study was concluded with the remark that human rights values might be an appropriate means to redefine values education, provided that the facilitation of human rights values are based on suitable theoretical and philosophical premises; and that those held responsible to facilitate such values are assisted in this task.
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    On the hegemony of International Knowledge in Tier 1 high-impact literature : a meta-study of citations in Indilinga (2008-2017)
    (University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2018) Du Preez, Petro; Ramrathan, Labby; Le Grange, Lesley
    In this article we problematize the hegemony of what we are choosing to call International Knowledge, as opposed to (South) African Knowledge, as it appears in articles and essays by International1 authors in high-impact journals. We eschew the term Global North in the light of rising debates about decolonisation and forms of cognitive colonisation. Knowledge is foregrounded in our focus on academic publishing and curriculum. We seek to explore the extent to which articles published in Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems have referenced (South) African scholars. We go on to provide some explanation of why there is still a dominant reliance on International Knowledge for the scholarship published in this journal. We employed a realist interpretivist meta-study design and we selected a sample of 246 articles published in Indilinga between 2008 and 2017. We analysed the reference lists of these articles to determine the ratio between South African, African,2 and International authors cited, and we determined the institutional affiliation of the authors as part of this study. We also analysed keywords that featured predominantly and that were aligned to the title of the journal. It was clear that International authors were cited most frequently in Indilinga.