Entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy: Addressing the challenge of assessment policy and practice

The focus of the South African Education Research Association’s Assessment and Testing Special Interest Group (SIG) is to contribute to current initiatives and debates pertaining to the development and implementation of assessment systems for improving learning and teaching. In particular, the SIG’s members aim to address dominant performativity discourses impacting schools and universities by (1) providing a common understanding of the purpose and use of assessment, (2) locating the different assessment applications across the broader system within which learning and teaching occurs, and (3) highlighting recent initiatives impacting on assessment policy and practices. We think it essential to highlight critical policy and practice questions, while simultaneously acknowledging ongoing challenges for implementing enabling assessment systems that support the specific pedagogical needs of learners, teachers, students, and lecturers. Notwithstanding the complexities ofeffecting change, increasing discourse on, as well as relevant critique of, policies and practices that fail to improve learning and teaching, enhances possibilities for implementing enabling assessment policy and practice that seek to address the elusive challenge of equity and quality within the education system.&nbsp

Gender equality and girls education: Investigating frameworks, disjunctures and meanings of quality education

The article draws on qualitative educational research across a diversity of low-income countries to examine the gendered inequalities in education as complex, multi-faceted and situated rather than a series of barriers to be overcome through linear input–output processes focused on isolated dimensions of quality. It argues that frameworks for thinking about educational quality often result in analyses of gender inequalities that are fragmented and incomplete. However, by considering education quality more broadly as a terrain of quality it investigates questions of educational transitions, teacher supply and community participation, and develops understandings of how education is experienced by learners and teachers in their gendered lives and their teaching practices. By taking an approach based on theories of human development the article identifies dynamics of power underpinning gender inequalities in the literature and played out in diverse contexts and influenced by social, cultural and historical contexts. The review and discussion indicate that attaining gender equitable quality education requires recognition and understanding of the ways in which inequalities intersect and interrelate in order to seek out multi-faceted strategies that address not only different dimensions of girls’ and women’s lives, but understand gendered relationships and structurally entrenched inequalities between women and men, girls and boys

Beyond critique to academic transformation : reconceptualising rurality in the global south

Critique is taken to mean an analytical examination of a text or a situation whether political or economic or social. Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment, it can also involve merit recognition, and, in the philosophical tradition, it also means a methodical practice of doubt. This reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation or observation is different from the pragmatic imperatives to action, in this case policy action; and in the South African case transformative policy action. Where the academy is concerned there is a radical difference between critiquing the academy and finding practical solutions to endemic problems ingrained not only in the philosophy but in the cyclical practice that drives it and the disciplines that emerge from it. This article takes its cue from the urgent need to go beyond ideologies which are neo-colonial, Eurocentric, abstract or individualist, to a discourse which engages in sustained action beginning with the academy. Since the universities in Africa remain mired in fundamentally Eurocentric views and interpretations, we need to find deep analyses and come out with propositions that have the ability to transcend the battle between scholars and academic paradigms to transformative imperatives that can put pressure and raise the bar for the academy to consider changing its ways.peer-reviewe

On CRDPs and CRPD: why the rights of people with disabilities are crucial for understanding climate-resilient development pathways

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Recovery and resilience of communities in flood risk zones in a small island developing state: A case study from a suburban settlement of Port Louis, Mauritius

Small island developing states (SIDS) are characterised by their small size, remoteness and their dispersal in vulnerable regions globally. In Mauritius, rapid economic growth and expansion of suburban and coastal settlements in flood risk zones have exacerbated challenges from increased vulnerability of local communities to frequent flooding and inadequate resilience. While most studies are devoted to coastal flooding due to sea level rise, inland flooding aggravated by human settlements on exposed areas and by human-environment interaction is rarely considered. Generally, studies have focused on immediate flood impacts rather than on post-event recovery factors that reduce resilience and lead to the inability to recover through successive events. This includes living through onslaught of secondary hazards post-event. This study (2008-2014) focuses on the recovery and resilience of a flood-prone community living in a suburban area of Port-Louis, the capital of Mauritius.A mixed method of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used to examine the recovery and resilience of the community at household level. Results from quantitative analysis showed significant associations at p≤0.05 between variables relating to recovery and those of income level, literacy level, and household size with children, and/or elderly persons. Qualitative results from focus group interviews indicated that social inequity and environmental injustice hindered recovery among low-income households. However, some resilience was present through community capital, with solidarity in times of adversity amongst some community sub-groups. Outcomes from a participatory exercise showed that experiential knowledge of how to cope with floods was crucial in resilience-building strategies of households and communities

The political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts

This report is a rigorous literature review on the political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts and is aimed at education advisers and agencies, development practitioners and Ministry of Education policy makers working in conflict-affected contexts. The report seeks to provide theoretically informed and policy relevant insights on the global, national and local governance of education systems in conflict-affected contexts garnered from a rigorous review of the academic and policy literature on the political economy of education in conflict-affected contexts. The review was driven by three main questions: (1) What are the underpinning assumptions of the main bodies of political economy research in education and conflict? (2) What can the political economy of education literature since 1990 inform us about educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? (3) What are the strengths, weaknesses, blind spots and research gaps in the political economy of education literature exploring the governance of educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? Chapter 1 outlines the rationale and aims of the review. Chapter 2, describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and presents the framing of the key issues under review, and Chapter 3 outlines the review methodology. Chapter 4 presents the main characteristics and an assessment of the quality of the studies selected for the in-depth review, and Chapter 5, discusses the review’s main findings. Chapter 6 presents the conclusions of the study, outlines a theory of change that emerges from the findings and draws out the policy insights and research gaps for future study

The Political Economy of Education Systems in Conflict-Affected Contexts: A Rigorous Literature Review

This report is a rigorous literature review on the political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts and is aimed at education advisers and agencies, development practitioners and Ministry of Education policy makers working in conflict-affected contexts. The report seeks to provide theoretically informed and policy relevant insights on the global, national and local governance of education systems in conflict-affected contexts garnered from a rigorous review of the academic and policy literature on the political economy of education in conflict-affected contexts.<p></p> The review was driven by three main questions: (1) What are the underpinning assumptions of the main bodies of political economy research in education and conflict? (2) What can the political economy of education literature since 1990 inform us about educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? (3) What are the strengths, weaknesses, blind spots and research gaps in the political economy of education literature exploring the governance of educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts?<p></p> Chapter 1 outlines the rationale and aims of the review. Chapter 2, describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and presents the framing of the key issues under review, and Chapter 3 outlines the review methodology. Chapter 4 presents the main characteristics and an assessment of the quality of the studies selected for the in-depth review, and Chapter 5, discusses the review’s main findings. Chapter 6 presents the conclusions of the study, outlines a theory of change that emerges from the findings and draws out the policy insights and research gaps for future study

Globalization and inter-local cooperation : the mediating roles of local contexts in the global North and South.

There is an area of scholarly interest which argues that globalization brings about the need for collaboration among local governmental units in order to address common challenges. According to Brenner and Swyngedouw, globalization also results in rescaling because it redefines spatial and political frameworks, and thus transfers powers to actors beneath and beyond the nation-state. Inter-local cooperation is a form of rescaling since it reconfigures territorial boundaries and results in either decentralization or centralization. This research explores the implications of globalization for inter-jurisdictional collaboration, as modified by local factors. It focuses on two city-regions in the Global North and South respectively (i.e. Chicago, Illinois and Accra, Ghana). Specific research questions are: (a) What is the nature of globalization in Chicago and Accra given their unique local contexts?; (b) How do local factors mediate the implications of globalization for regional cooperation in the two metropolitan areas?; (c) What are the ramifications of globalization for rescaling in the two city-regions, given their respective local contexts? The qualitative inquiry is exploratory in nature and relies on secondary data, discourse analysis, and interviews. It finds that because of their different levels of strategic importance in the global economy, Chicago serves as a headquarter location for multinational corporations, while Accra plays host to subsidiaries or local branches of such corporate entities. As a result of Chicago’s strong private sector and history of civic engagement, globalization has resulted in a fluid, voluntary, and informal approach to regionalism characterized by resistance to annexation and political fragmentation. In the case of Accra, governmental institutional restructuring associated with the global era has created an administrative, directed, and formal approach to regionalism, associated with territorial expansion and centralized bureaucracy. The research shows existing works by scholars such as Brenner and Swyngedouw do not sufficiently account for the mediating roles of local contexts, particularly in the Global South, when analyzing the implications of globalization for regionalism

Intergenerational Community-Based Research and Creative Practice: Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Jinja, Uganda

This article critically reflects on the methodological approach developed for a recent project based in Jinja, Uganda, that sought to generate new forms of environmental knowledge and action utilizing diverse forms of creative intergenerational practice embedded within a broader framework of community-based participatory research. This approach provided new opportunities for intergenerational dialogue in Jinja, generated increased civic environmental engagement, and resulted in a participant-led campaign to share knowledge regarding sustainable biomass consumption. We term this approach intergenerational community-based research and creative practice. We discuss the advantages of this model while also reflecting throughout on the challenges of the approach

Service Enquiry Service in the 21st Century

The workshop set out to acknowledge and explore the potential of youth service as a strategy for social, economic and democratic development, to identify new work that needs to be undertaken, and to increase knowledge about youth