Faculty of Education

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The vision of the Faculty of Education is to be "acknowledged and respected unequivocally as a leading and engaged research-driven education faculty". In line with this, we pride ourselves on playing a leading role in education, both locally and globally. Central to our vision is a commitment to engage with educational challenges, particularly in South Africa.

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Academic literacy as a graduate attribute: implications for thinking about curriculum
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2011) Leibowitz, Brenda
INTRODUCTION: This chapter is set within the current focus on graduate attributes. These are qualities which students require in order to study at university, as well as and more typically, the attributes that students require in order to graduate as competent and meaningfully engaged members of society. The particular subset of attributes on which the chapter focuses covers approaches towards academic literacy, broadly understood as encompassing writing and reading, digital literacy and information literacy. I locate my understanding of academic literacy within what is broadly referred to as a ‘situated literacies’ approach and trace the implications of this approach for curriculum design and for research into the curriculum. In order to substantiate many of the claims in this chapter, I provide examples from various studies conducted while being involved in research and development work on language across the curriculum at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and from research into language, biography and identity I have conducted while working at Stellenbosch University. I draw from the international literature, as well as from South African literature, which has its own trajectory and concern to respond to the educational, racial and linguistically saturated divisions and inequities of our past. This chapter makes a strong argument for an understanding of graduate attributes in general – and of academic literacy in particular – as practices deeply embedded in the disciplines. For pragmatic reasons, it might be necessary to provide for stand-alone approaches towards the facilitation of academic literacy amongst students. With regard to the broader concept of graduate attributes, I ask whether the kinds of attributes we expect from students, such as criticality or lifelong learning, should not be the subject of attention for educators themselves.
Afterword
(SUN MeDIA, 2012) Leibowitz, Brenda
Earlier this year I attended a conference in Götenburg, Sweden, on integrating language teaching into the disciplines – nothing overtly to do with social justice or the public good. One evening after a long and tiring day mulling over the conference proceedings, a group of conference goers, including two from South Africa, one from Spain and one from the United States, settled down for a drink and a (hopefully) frivolous conversation. The conversation soon became serious. We talked about South Africa and apartheid and the past; about Spain and its right-wing dictatorship; and about the United States and resistance to the Vietnam war. Each of us expressed our strong feelings about the injustices in our own countries that we had to endure and grapple with somehow. We found ourselves comparing our attitudes towards these ‘pasts’ with those of the younger generation that had been born after these periods of extreme injustice. Some of our children or students were interested in what we had to say, but sometimes they resisted this ‘harping on’ about the past. In South Africa the term ‘born frees’ has been coined to discuss the lives of young people born since apartheid ended.
Aligning student and supervisor perspectives of research challenges
(SUN MeDIA, 2016) Albertyn, Ruth; Van Coller-Peter, Salome; Morrison, John
Introduction: The coursework to me was like riding a mountain bike on a mountain bike trail. It was tough at times, but a great adventure. The more you rode, the more skilful you became, both technically and theoretically. The research process for me was like cycling the same mountain bike trail, but on a road bike. It just never really became easy. (Student) This comment illustrates how a student participant in our study vividly distinguished the research experience from the coursework in completing a postgraduate qualification. The challenges experienced with research, and the natural predisposition towards the theoretical and practical course content, play a role in completion rates at master’s or doctoral level. This phenomenon has become a focus of research and sometimes it is referred to as ‘all but dissertation’ or ABD (Blum 2010; Albertyn, Kapp & Bitzer 2008). In some cases, the research component is seen as the ‘necessary evil’ of obtaining the higher degree. A negative attitude to research at the outset could influence students’ engagement with research, their ability to think creatively, and eventually the quality and completion of the research (Kearns, Gardiner & Marshall 2008).
Becoming doctorate as an endpoint and a point of departure
(SUN MeDIA, 2016) Bitzer, Eli; Leshem, Shosh; Trafford, Vernon
INTRODUCTION: There are generic features of ‘the doctorate’ that transcend disciplines, universities and doctoral procedures. Perspectives on doctoral outcomes include features of received wisdom, which scholars often refer to as the ‘gold standard’ of the doctorate (Trafford & Leshem 2008: 34–35). When standards at such a scholarly level are met, they constitute ‘doctorateness’, which is what examiners expect to be displayed in doctoral theses (Halse & Malfroy 2010; McAlpine & Ashgar 2010). To achieve generic scholarly standards, doctoral candidates are expected to progress beyond merely reporting facts; levels of knowledge, skills and attitudes that involve intellectualising, conceptualising and contributing to existing knowledge are required. Candidates and supervisors who display this understanding appreciate connections between doing research and writing a doctoral thesis, and for candidates at some institutions, defending their thesis in a doctoral viva. When these criteria for a doctoral degree are met, then ‘doctorateness’ is demonstrated (Trafford & Leshem 2008; 2011).
Bringing the community into higher education
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2016) Albertyn, Ruth M.
Introduction: The third core function of community interaction in higher education is often viewed as the peripheral activity in the triad of academic tasks. Community interaction is seen as an imperative which often results in reluctant compliance rather than enthusiastic engagement. Notional value of community initiatives has been well articulated both internationally and nationally and calls on the sense of social justice, making a meaningful contribution to society, mutual benefits and reciprocity (Boyer 1990; Kolawole 2005; Waghid 2009; Hall 2010; Lange 2012). Community initiatives can contribute to transformation that is so vital in the historical context of South African higher education (Albertyn and Daniels 2009; Bitzer and Albertyn 2012; Leibowitz 2012; Petersen and Osman 2013). Despite cognition of the well-documented benefits of engaged activity, it is widely felt that many academics pay lip-service to community interaction and try to get away with the bare minimum. Undoubtedly, the reason for this could be ascribed to the innate tensions currently faced by universities and academics. This situation may be due to on the one hand, the reality of the globalised economy with the competitive, individualised focus of knowledge economies (James, Guile and Unwin 2013), and on the other hand, the social agenda which encourages engaged citizenship.
Candidates, supervisors and institutions: pushing postgraduate boundaries: an overview
(SUN PRESS, 2014) Frick, Liezel; Bitzer, Eli; Albertyn, Ruth
INTRODUCTION: Academic boundaries are in some ways similar to national boundaries – they are set up to colonise and govern, but at the same time are constantly challenged to reaffirm their authority and meaning. The postgraduate environment has been and is still colonised and governed by a variety of boundaries: inter/national, geographical, cultural, institutional, disciplinary and paradigmatic; also those of knowledge and relationships, and many more. The contributions to this book set out to explore and challenge such boundaries as they exist within the postgraduate environment. The work of Thomas Kuhn (1962) and others on paradigms set the scene for establishing boundaries both within and between academic disciplines in terms of research. The earlier work of Becher and Trowler (2001) on academic tribes and their territories may also be useful to explain academics’ search for a scholarly identity in the higher education environment. An academic tribe provides its members with an identity and a particular frame of reference. The characteristic identity of a particular academic tribe is developed from an early age – usually already at the undergraduate level, where patterns of thought are imprinted. These ‘tribal’ associations are often solidified at the postgraduate level.
A century of misery research on coloured people
(African Sun Media, 2020) Jansen, Jonathan; Walters, Cyrill
When a group of Stellenbosch University (SU) researchers published an article on the “low cognitive functioning” and “unhealthy lifestyle behaviours” of coloured women,2 there was immediate outrage across the campus and the country. Yet this particular piece of published research was by no means exceptional. In fact, for the past hundred years Stellenbosch – and other South African universities – had been engaged in what is called race-essentialist research, that is, studies that insisted that there are four racial groups (whites, Indians, coloureds and Africans) and that certain aptitudes, behaviours and even diseases were directly related to these political classifications.
Challenges for curriculum in a contemporary South Africa
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2011) Le Grange, Lesley
INTRODUCTION: Curriculum is a complex and contested terrain that is variously described based on disparate philosophical lenses through which it is viewed. When the word ‘curriculum’ is used it is generally understood as applying to school education, that is to the prescribed learning programmes of schools or more broadly to the learning opportunities provided to school learners, rather than to higher education. A survey of articles published in prominent curriculum journals such as the Journal of Curriculum Studies and Curriculum Inquiry, for instance, shows that very little space is given to articles on higher education. Ironically, the term was first used in relation to higher education rather than school education. It was Ramus, the sixteenth-century master at the University of Paris, who first worked on ‘methodising’ knowledge and teaching. It was in Ramus’s work, a taxonomy of knowledge, the Professio Regia (1576), which was published posthumously, that the word ‘curriculum’ first appears, referring to “a sequential course of study” (for more detail see Doll 2002:31). According to Doll (2002:31), Ramus’s idea of a general codification of knowledge (curriculum) flourished among universities that were strongly influenced by Calvinism, ostensibly because of their affinity for discipline, order and control.
Coda: Beyond Critical Citizenship Education
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2015) Waghid, Yusef
Undoubtedly, this volume offers a cogent and coherent account of citizenship education commensurate with critical curriculum inquiry at universities. Using social transformation in South Africa as a backdrop, Costandius and Bitzer posit that university education ought to be framed according to theories and practices of critical citizenship education that can hopefully engender more inclusive pedagogical practices, in reference to teaching, learning, policy changes and research. Their understanding of critical citizenship education, as aptly articulated in the first chapter, is couched within the parameters of a transformative pedagogy that accentuates the importance of critical reflection, imagination, human co-existence in the face of diversity and the cultivation of social justice. Moreover, in Chapter 2, by drawing on the seminal thoughts of an illustrious scholar of critical pedagogy, Henry Giroux, they contend that the domination, exclusion and marginalisation of students in and through university curricula should be counteracted, and that appropriate epistemological, conceptual, structural, narratival and paradigmatic changes should be enacted so that higher education discourses might be attenuated more towards spaces of democratic action.
Conceptualising risk in doctoral education: Navigating boundary tensions
(SUN PRESS, 2014) Frick, Liezel; Albertyn, Ruth; Bitzer, Eli
Introduction: If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn Risk-taking is an important form of human behaviour, but can be conceptualised in different ways (Byrnes, Miller & Schafer 1999). Some researchers in higher education point to the association between academic risk and its negative consequences (McWilliam, Lawson, Evans & Taylor 2005; McWilliam, Sanderson, Evans, Lawson & Taylor 2006; McWilliam, Singh & Taylor 2002) and therefore conceptualise risk as something that should be avoided or at least carefully managed. Others highlight risk as an opportunity for achievement (Backhouse 2009; Frick 2011, 2012; Holligan 2005). If innovation is key to the generation of new knowledge, then risk is seen to be an integral part of this process (Brown 2010). Knowledge and innovation are considered to be critical contributors to national wealth and welfare and therefore doctoral education has gained increasing significance within the context of human capital development (Bloland 2005; CHE 2009). In this context, the dynamics of balancing risk and innovation (Brown 2010; Latham & Braun 2009) may provide challenges for the supervisory relationship and the research process. Education – and more specifically doctoral education – seems to be risky given the requirement to produce original knowledge. Students need to have “the courage and confidence to take risks, to make mistakes, to invent and reinvent knowledge, and to pursue critical and lifelong inquiries in the world, with the world, and with each other” (Freire 1970, cited in Lin & Cranton 2005:458). MacKinnon (1970) agrees that the courage to take risks is an important characteristic of creative endeavours – such as doctoral studies. In this chapter we therefore take the position that risk is unavoidable within the context of doctoral education, but in order to extend the boundaries and manage risk constructively, supervisors could gain from understanding the concept of risk within this context.
The ‘creative-minded supervisor : gatekeeping and boundary breaking when supervising creative doctorates
(SUN MeDIA, 2016) Wisker, Gina; Robinson, Gillian
INTRODUCTION: Research into what examiners value in a PhD (Kiley & Mullins 2002) identified some characteristics which might surprise supervisors who seek to ensure that, as well as contributing to knowledge, their students undertake manageable research projects, use familiar (enough) methodologies and methods and conform (enough) to acceptable formats in the finished thesis. In their research, both risk-taking and creativity emerged as highly valued in successful PhD theses. Creativity and risktaking might be expected essentials in a PhD which centres on an artistic production, and are very familiar to those taking experimental approaches or challenging fixed ideas. However, for those of us supervising a much broader range of research it could be challenging to find ways to work with students or negotiate routes that are risky and creative, also sound, safe, familiar, and likely to be successful. This raises an exciting set of opportunities, located in supervisors’ roles, and in supervisorstudent interactions, in context. Supervisors are gatekeepers, boundary brokers, and boundary breakers, particularly when working with creative doctorates. Creative postgraduate students engaged in creative doctorates, whether in the creative arts, or taking creative approaches to problems and questions in a range of disciplines, might take us out of our own comfort zones. Yet, we would like to argue that, as supervisors, we need to be – in the words of one of our respondents – ‘creativeminded’ enough (Wisker & Robinson 2014) to encourage and reward the creative approaches and work, while also ensuring that the breaking of boundaries in new knowledge also fulfils expectations of a rigorous research project and wellcommunicated thesis.
Critical professionalism: a lecturer attribute for troubled times
(SUN MeDIA, 2012) Leibowitz, Brenda; Holgate, David
Introduction: This chapter describes the research-based project, Critical Professionalism, which gave rise to several of the chapters in this volume. We suggest that the concept of critical professionalism, with its strong valueorientation, makes a foundational contribution to approaches to professional development for teaching for the public good in South Africa and other parts of the world. We use data generated from this project to tease out some of the characteristics of critical professionals, as well as some of the key ingredients necessary to support the emergence of academics as critical professionals. We begin by setting the scene for the study and explaining why, in the present era, academics’ sense of agency, criticality and professionalism might be threatened – to a fair degree by the rise of the audit culture and a strong managerial and prescriptive approach to steering the direction of higher education.
Developing doctoral research skills for workplace inquiry : using an integrated methodology
(SUN MeDIA, 2016) Plowright, David
INTRODUCTION: The role of academic and scholarly research, including that undertaken for a postgraduate research degree, has changed in its emphasis. It is no longer restricted to the production of inward-looking disciplinary scholarship but to useful, instrumental knowledge that can be put to good use to address workplace issues and real-world problems. Indeed, Weber (2011:526) points out that in the knowledge society, even “scholarship must serve the requirements of the national economy in becoming more globally competitive”. Thus, research will inevitably suffer from “[t]he dominant global narrative of neoliberalism [that] underpins what has become known as the knowledge economy, where knowledge is valued for its economic worth rather than its intrinsic good” (Le Grange 2012:1133). This, of course, raises important questions about the role played by universities in the knowledge society: should they be concerned primarily with, on the one hand, the reproduction and transmission of knowledge and culture or, on the other, the transformation of that knowledge for the benefit of society (Delanty 2001)? It is a distinction that is currently a pressing issue for universities in South Africa where “[b]oth reproductive and transformative tendencies can be identified in varying degrees” (Reddy 2004:42). Indeed, at the time of writing, the current student unrest across the country reflects the pressure on higher education to play its role in social and democratic change. At a more micro-level, there is a need for rigorous, well-managed and effectivelyexecuted research, both inside higher education and in the public, private and not-forprofit sectors.
Doctoral students' identities : does it matter
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2016) Leshem, Shosh
Introduction: These excerpts depict the sentiments of doctoral students who were at different stages in their doctoral journey and shared their narratives with me. My interest in their narratives started long before embarking on this research. They were staff members in my faculty and knowing of my interest in doctoral education, visited my office to share their experiences, frustrations, delights and quests. I was intrigued by the emotions they expressed, and the powerful influence that these emotions seemed to have on their doctoral journey. My collegial interest transformed into research when one of them stated very ardently that she felt she was in a constant ‘dance of identities’. It immediately captured my inquisitive mind and I wondered about the nature of these ‘identity dances’ and, in fact, why should it really matter. However, I recognized that that these comments accorded with the doctoral journey being highly emotional with students experiencing isolation, alienation, loneliness and distress (Jones 2013). Research also suggests that identity development is a crucial dimension of the doctoral student experience, and yet, few studies have examined the process (Jazvac-Mrtek 2009; Baker and Pifer 2011). I then commenced exploring students’ narratives, focusing on how identities are negotiated and constructed during the doctoral journey.
Education transformation, assessment and ubuntu in South Africa
(Department of Education Policy Studies : Stellenbosch University, 2005-4) Beets, P. A. D.; Van Louw, T.
INTRODUCTION: Education in South Africa is faced with several challenges in an era of political and social transformation following the first democratic elections in 1994. A plethora of education policies has been developed in recent times with a view to changing education practices and equipping learners to take on the role of critical citizens in changing global and national environments. In line with international trends. assessment policies have been developed in South Africa mandating the implementation of more authentic practices. Many of the ideas regarding assessment theory and practice (including more authentic ones) have largely been framed within a Western paradigm that disregards the value that the notion of ubuntu can add in making the process of assessment sensitive to the needs of learners and teachers located within an African context.
Equity and access: a curricular perspective
(AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2016) Leibowitz, Brenda
Introduction: This chapter is concerned with equity and access to the curriculum, which has been shown by numerous analyses of statistics, as well as experience of those of us who are concerned to improve the state of education in South Africa, to be extremely problematic with unequal levels of student success. The view of ‘curriculum’ adopted in this chapter is an expanded one. It proposes the idea of the curriculum as an “active conceptual force” (Le Grange 2016:8). ‘Pedagogy’ and ‘curriculum’ can be plotted on a continuum from design choices at the micro level to choices at the macro level. Clearly the curriculum, even the expanded view, is embedded within a broader ecology of learning and living phenomena. However, for the purposes of this short chapter, the ‘learning’ dimensions are focussed upon. Equity and equality, it is proposed, are advanced within a conceptualisation of cognitive justice, which is itself interrelated with the notion of ‘social justice’ (de Sousa Santos 2014). Fraser’s (2009) description of social justice is extremely useful. She equates social justice with the ability to interact on an equal footing with social peers. In order to achieve this participatory parity in a higher education context, social arrangements would have to be put in place, which would make it possible for individuals to interact on a par with one other. The three dimensions of social justice, which are interrelated and mutually dependent, are: recognition, which refers mostly to the cultural domain and the recognition of the status of groups; distribution, which pertains mostly to the material domain, to resources such as computers, parents’ salaries to finance higher education; and, representation, which is more political, and includes who is regarded as a legitimate citizen, who may participate in political processes, and who is entitled to voice needs.
An evaluative framework for a socially just institution
(SUN MeDIA, 2012) Bozalek, Vivienne; Leibowitz, Brenda
Introduction: Lindi arrived at a privileged South African university from rural Kwa-Zulu-Natal, having been top of her class most of her life. She suddenly found herself unable to participate as an equal in her new environment. This is the situation many South Africans find themselves in when coming to university for the first time, or when starting a postgraduate course at a new university. In this chapter we consider what institutional arrangements would be necessary for students to participate as equals in higher education regardless of – or in fact taking into account – social class, race, gender, sexuality, ablebodiedness, language or religion. We view higher education as both a valuable process and an outcome. But what does this mean in contexts of severe inequality? How do we achieve education as a public good, and how do we know when we are achieving it? To answer these questions, we make use of a normative framework which assists us in examining the values that underpin higher education policies and practices. We regard this as an important stepping stone in building visions of what may be possible in higher education institutions. It allows alternative discursive spaces to be opened up for public debate and policy development in higher education.
Exploring linguistic resources in academic literacy development in isiXhosa printed media texts, within the framework of genre-based teaching
(Casas, 2017) Xeketwana, Simthembile
This chapter explores properties of the influential genre-based approach to literacy development (developed by Australian researchers over the past three decades) regarding its possible application in the South African context. The chapter aims at contributing towards the advancement of literacy in writing in isiXhosa in secondary education, from Grades 6 to 12. The genre-based approach and systemic functional linguistics are utilised to examine media texts which can be included in isiXhosa teaching as possible learning materials. An example of a newspaper article (text type) in isiXhosa is examined with regard to its schematic structure and linguistic resources. Arguments are presented to the effect that, (i) the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement of the Department of Basic Education contains specifications regarding reading and writing in the home language subject which strongly assume teachers’ expertise in using a genrebased approach and the use of printed-media texts; and (ii) to this effect demonstration of printed-media text (newspapers) will be used to illustrate how media texts can be utilised successfully by teachers in the home language class to facilitate academic literacy. In conclusion, the paper argues that analysis of media texts through the framework of systemic functional linguistics could benefit the educators, in order to develop learners’ literacy skills.
Hopeful teacher education in South Africa: Towards a politics of humanity
(SUN MeDIA, 2012) Waghid, Yusef
INTRODUCTION: In this chapter I offer an account of Nussbaum’s politics of humanity to show how teacher education programmes can be remedied as the country’s universities endeavour to address the poor quality of teacher education programmes. Since the demise of apartheid education, the development of policy in relation to teacher education in South Africa has undergone major adjustments, and yet credible change in teacher education remains elusive. By far the most prominent conceptual and pragmatic change to which teacher education has been subjected points towards the cultivation of teachers who can enact their professions as democratic citizens. This implies that teachers ought to engender in learners a spirit of democratic citizenry that can imbue in them the virtues of dialogical engagement, connecting caringly with the other, and performing their tasks in a responsible manner. So it happens that current policy on teacher education accentuates the ‘roles’ of teachers in a post-apartheid dispensation along the lines of such democratic virtues.
The impact of COVID-19 on chess in South Africa
(CSSALL Publishers, 2020) Esau, Omar
In this chapter I address the question of the way that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with its new normal and social distancing, impacts the sport code of chess in South Africa. This pandemic has already drastically altered the fixtures of numerous sport codes including the planned events and outcomes of some elite professional leagues. Chess as an Olympic sport code, although more amateur in South Africa, offers benefits across the socio-economic spectrum in terms of administrators, players, coaches and referees (arbiters). I employ an auto-ethnographic case study methodological approach, which enables one to draw on ‘personal and experiential data,’ for example, my own observations and experiences as a chess player and administrator. Amidst the uncertainty of the future and in anticipation of perhaps a large-scale devastation, the COVID-19 pandemic imposes the need for innovative and creative thinking to keep future aspirations of chess alive. Drawing on my lived experiences, I employ an auto-ethnographic approach to inspire hope for the future.

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