Aspiration and resilience - challenging deficit theories/models of black students in universities - an auto/biographical narrative research study

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014) Deficit theory can still haunt the academy, and nowhere is this more prolific than in rhetoric used to explain the position and overall experience of Black Students in universities, in comparison to their White counterparts. The adoption of a Critical Race Theory (CRT) approach is helpful in illuminating how and why this happens, especially if combined with auto/biographical narrative enquiry. And how, in thought and practice, the academy can be made more inclusive. The study illuminates something more complex and human than theory alone in that the lives of three women (Zara, Gail and Mary, the researcher), are redolent with the imprints of family, gender, generational change, migration and cultural richness attesting “community cultural wealth” and a challenge to “cultural capital”, narrowly defined. To understand us and our narratives, requires an auto/biographical imagination or what Wright Mills (1959) coined the ‘sociological imagination’ where there is an inquisitiveness to find out the individual’s historical and social as well as intimate experiences in society and to give meaning to these. To examine Black women’s role in education and in diversity issues. Rather than a deficit model, the argument is that Black students demonstrate forms of resilience, and that the academy needs to learn, in theory and practice, from what we have to offer. There is, as part of the above, an interrogation of what being a university is and might be. There can be emptiness in policy statements, as well as avoidance, on the one hand; on the other, moments of courage, and struggle, of which the thesis is a part, to remind us of what a university can be; a place where difficult issues are addressed, in passionate, reflexive, intellectual yet also humane ways. It identifies our responsibilities and roles as champions of social justice as the very essence of being an academic. The thesis is written for a lecturer who did not see, and colleagues who did not understand, and the institution that needs to listen and act. It paints a picture of what the more inclusive university might be like, alongside an understanding of how difficult it is for humans to engage with difficulty and complexity, of race, stereotyping and discrimination as it pertains to the academy. Most importantly the thesis is written for the countless Black students “who still rise” through their resistance, resilience and aspiration in the face of an ideological discourse, however disguised, of deficit

How Military Service Influences the Transition to Adulthood Among Post-911 Young Adult Female Veterans with Service Related Disabilities

Over 280,000 female servicemembers have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and a significant number of them are experiencing hidden and/or visible wounds of war. Recent reports indicate that female servicemembers have service-connected disability ratings higher than that of their male counterparts. Female servicemembers often find themselves negotiating roles that are at once ‘inside’ as well as ‘outside’ of a hierarchical, proscribed military institution whose rituals, norms, and hierarchies privilege males in positions of power. Their transition to adulthood as young veterans with service-related disabilities, within a present-day civilian society that can be more ambiguous and discontinuous than in the past decades can often be difficult; particularly during the early years after separation. Fifteen young, female veterans with service-related disabilities, who have left active duty within three years were interviewed for this study, of which 12 met the study criteria. The narratives of their pre-during-and post-military lives contribute to a grounded theory of female veteran transition to adulthood that validates the integration of the Life Course Perspective, Disability Theory, Role/Exit Theory, and theories of Identity and Belonging in ways heretofore unexplored. This study also validates the premise that the female veteran experience is sufficiently different from the male veteran experience in substantive ways. Finally, this research suggests that transition planning and post-military service supports should be customized specifically to address the needs of female servicemembers with disabilities, oriented towards preparing them to resume their civilian lives after exiting the military institution

Faculty Perceptions of Division I Male Student-Athletes: The Relationship between Student-Athlete Contact, Athletic Department Involvement, and Perceptions of Intercollegiate Athletics

It has been widely recognized that student-athletes, especially in the sports of men's basketball and football, endure stereotyping (Bowen & Levin, 2003; Simons, Bosworth, Fujita, & Jensen, 2007, Baucom & Lantz, 2001). Although stereotypes about male basketball and football student-athletes academic behaviors are expressed by many sectors of the university community, the resentment most poignantly comes from faculty (Leach & Conners, 1984). The present study examined full-time faculty member's negative stereotypes towards male basketball and football player's. Specifically, this study looked at how faculty stereotypes about male basketball and football player's academic behaviors relate to faculty perceptions about their campus' athletics department, the amount of contact faculty have with male basketball and football student-athletes, and faculty involvement with their athletics department. Over 250 faculty members across eight different departments at four Division I institutions participated in this study. Results indicated that factors such as positive athletic department perceptions, greater contact with male basketball and football student-athletes and greater faculty involvement with their campus athletics department are related to fewer faculty stereotypes about male basketball and football student-athletes

Skunk River Review 2008-2009, vol 21

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/skunkriver/1014/thumbnail.jp

1989 January

MSU Clip Sheet newsletters published in January of 1989

Rethinking our understanding of career decision making: the views of students at a selected South African TVET colleges on what influences their career decisions

In South Africa, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has been identified as a potential solution to the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. The 2013 White Paper for Post-School Education and Training: Building on Expanded, Effective and Integrated Post-School Education (DHET, 2013) identifies TVET colleges as an area of great expansion. Although such an expansion is important and necessary, it is unfortunate that in South Africa, research has paid little to no attention to what influences TVET college students' career decision making. Concerning this, the study reported in this dissertation aimed to investigate what influences the career decision making of TVET college students in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, Eastern Cape, South Africa. This qualitative study, located within the subjectivist ontology and interpretivist epistemology, contributes to understanding what influences the career decision making of TVET college students in a developing context of South Africa. Drawing on qualitative (individual and group) interviews with students, it examined the career decisions of a small sample of students enrolled at one South African public TVET college in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. In so doing, the study brings four elements to the study of career decision making. Firstly, empirically, it brings a fresh and subjective perspective of what 'TVET' and 'career' means to TVET students. Secondly, it brings to the literature on TVET, an analysis of the Careership Theory that draws from the TVET college students' experiences. Thirdly, it brings to our understanding of career decision making, the role of structure and agency from a Bourdieusian2 perspective. Fourthly, it transcends the heavily critiqued Bourdieusian model to encompass the notion of capacity to aspire, borrowed from Arjun Appadurai, to better explain the role of culture in social action. Data were collected using individual and group interview methods, which were later transcribed and analysed thematically. The findings show that career decision making is dependent on the perceptions of the primary decision makers and other social agents that learners interacted with in the field. Career decision making is situated in the vast social inequalities and unequal power relations shaped by unequal access to cultural, economic and social capital. However, as much as social structures influence career decision making, the role of agency must not be underestimated. The findings further reveal that career decisions are located in the objective and social structures, and these are influenced by capital (cultural, economic and social). Furthermore, career decisions are influenced by the capacity of the individuals to choose, to know what to choose, as well as structural enablers like finance. In short, the findings reveal that inequalities matter, for example, socio-economic and gender disparities.Thesis (DEd) -- Faculty of Education, 202

Rethinking our understanding of career decision making: the views of students at a selected South African TVET colleges on what influences their career decisions

In South Africa, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has been identified as a potential solution to the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. The 2013 White Paper for Post-School Education and Training: Building on Expanded, Effective and Integrated Post-School Education (DHET, 2013) identifies TVET colleges as an area of great expansion. Although such an expansion is important and necessary, it is unfortunate that in South Africa, research has paid little to no attention to what influences TVET college students' career decision making. Concerning this, the study reported in this dissertation aimed to investigate what influences the career decision making of TVET college students in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, Eastern Cape, South Africa. This qualitative study, located within the subjectivist ontology and interpretivist epistemology, contributes to understanding what influences the career decision making of TVET college students in a developing context of South Africa. Drawing on qualitative (individual and group) interviews with students, it examined the career decisions of a small sample of students enrolled at one South African public TVET college in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. In so doing, the study brings four elements to the study of career decision making. Firstly, empirically, it brings a fresh and subjective perspective of what 'TVET' and 'career' means to TVET students. Secondly, it brings to the literature on TVET, an analysis of the Careership Theory that draws from the TVET college students' experiences. Thirdly, it brings to our understanding of career decision making, the role of structure and agency from a Bourdieusian2 perspective. Fourthly, it transcends the heavily critiqued Bourdieusian model to encompass the notion of capacity to aspire, borrowed from Arjun Appadurai, to better explain the role of culture in social action. Data were collected using individual and group interview methods, which were later transcribed and analysed thematically. The findings show that career decision making is dependent on the perceptions of the primary decision makers and other social agents that learners interacted with in the field. Career decision making is situated in the vast social inequalities and unequal power relations shaped by unequal access to cultural, economic and social capital. However, as much as social structures influence career decision making, the role of agency must not be underestimated. The findings further reveal that career decisions are located in the objective and social structures, and these are influenced by capital (cultural, economic and social). Furthermore, career decisions are influenced by the capacity of the individuals to choose, to know what to choose, as well as structural enablers like finance. In short, the findings reveal that inequalities matter, for example, socio-economic and gender disparities.Thesis (DEd) -- Faculty of Education, 202