Youth perspectives of achievement: Is money everything?

This article draws from a qualitative research project completed at Victoria High School (pseudonym) in Cape Town in 2012 which explored 13 learners’ perspectives of achievement and its influence on their lives and thinking. The piece problematises and analyses taken-for-granted connections between money, achievement, youth aspirations and views of employment (Opsahl & Dunnette, 1966). The article builds on McClelland’s (1967: 10) view that “money isn’t everything,” that money is a motivator for some, yet often inconsequential for others, and that its meaning mostly lies “in the eye of the beholder”. In light of this view, the articles discusses the perspectives of four learners at Victoria High to illustrate how they approached achievement, aspiration and materiality according to the different social standings and worlds that they inhabited. It was found that the expressed views of achievement by learners went beyond stereotypical and measurable attitudes and connected in quite complex ways with how they imagined their futures. The learners approached the notion of achievement in developmental, cumulative, and progressive ways. An interpretive qualitative paradigm using the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Arjun Appadurai was employed to highlight how the youth’s various capitals and aspirations respectively influenced their notions of achievement

Teachers and social cohesion in the Global South: expanding the notion of education quality

The second decade of the 21st century has been largely characterised by ever-widening inequalities within and between countries, global economic crises, conflict, and climate change. Concern about this is evident in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon in September 2015. The SDGs arguably lay a foundation in both the Global North and the Global South for a renewed and ambitious development framework that tackles poverty and inequality, promotes social and economic inclusion, addresses the universal challenge of climate change, and focuses directly on issues of equity and access to quality education. Countries and organisations across the world, in engaging with this framework and reflecting on the various agreed (SDG) goals for 2030, have however struggled to comprehensively define the challenges attached to each of the above goals ‒ especially the latter. What is meant by equitable and inclusive quality education for all? On the one hand, an estimated 250 million children across the world are still ‘not learning even basic literacy and numeracy skills, let alone the further skills they need to get decent work and lead fulfilling lives’ (UNESCO 2014). On the other hand, where children do access education provision, the quality of the provision has often been directly related to their economic status. Invariably ‘the well-off tend to attend good schools and universities, mostly privately funded, and the poor attend inadequate, mostly publicly funded facilities’ (United Nations Development Programme 2013). This is particularly the case in developing countries, and suggests that a central driver in transforming human development prospects in these countries into the next period would need to be tied to the provision of greater access to ‘high-quality education’

Different rules for different teachers: teachers' views of professionalism and accountability in a bifurcated education system

This paper reports the initial results from a representative survey of teachers in the Western Cape regarding their views of professionalism and accountability. This is the first survey of its kind in South Africa. Preliminary analysis of the data from 115 public schools suggests that teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing the greatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, particularly from the state. Related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as central to being a professional, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. This indicates that teachers at different schools are subject to different and unequal institutions (or rules), where the kind of school that teachers work at often reflects their race and gender positioning. This implies that the concept of a bifurcated education system, characterised by different production functions and outcomes for learners, should be expanded to include teachers and deepened to include institutions

Different rules for different teachers: teachers’ views of professionalism and accountability in a bifurcated education system1

AbstractThis paper reports the initial results from a representative survey of teachers in the WesternCape regarding their views of professionalism and accountability. This is the first survey ofits kind in South Africa. Preliminary analysis of the data from 115 public schools suggeststhat teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing thegreatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, particularlyfrom the state. Related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as central to being aprofessional, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledgeand job prestige. This indicates that teachers at different schools are subject to different andunequal institutions (or rules), where the kind of school that teachers work at often reflectstheir race and gender positioning. It also implies that the concept of a bifurcated educationsystem, characterised by different production functions and outcomes for learners, shouldbe expanded to include teachers and deepened to include institutions.

Youth perspectives of achievement: Is money everything?

This article draws from a qualitative research project completed at Victoria High School (pseudonym) in Cape Town in 2012 which explored 13 learners’ perspectives of achievement and its influence on their lives and thinking. The piece problematises and analyses taken-for-granted connections between money, achievement, youth aspirations and views of employment (Opsahl & Dunnette, 1966). The article builds on McClelland’s (1967: 10) view that “money isn’t everything,” that money is a motivator for some, yet often inconsequential for others, and that its meaning mostly lies “in the eye of the beholder”. In light of this view, the articles discusses the perspectives of four learners at Victoria High to illustrate how they approached achievement, aspiration and materiality according to the different social standings and worlds that they inhabited. It was found that the expressed views of achievement by learners went beyond stereotypical and measurable attitudes and connected in quite complex ways with how they imagined their futures. The learners approached the notion of achievement in developmental, cumulative, and progressive ways. An interpretive qualitative paradigm using the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Arjun Appadurai was employed to highlight how the youth’s various capitals and aspirations respectively influenced their notions of achievement

"Narratives of Social Cohesion”: Bridging the Link between School Culture, Linguistic Identity and the English Language

This paper argues that processes of self-creation are significantly influenced by experiences of schooling, of which language forms a critical aspect. The school is a central site in which identities are contested, negotiated and affirmed, but it is also imbibed with a particular identity that, in the South African context, often remains expressly raced and classed. Existing research has pointed to the salience of language for questions of identity in education, and moreover the relationship between school cultures and the inculcation of particular norms and values. However, in the South African context research should also be focusing on the relationship between the major medium of instruction in schools, English, the values and behaviour encouraged at the school level, and how these influence learners’ linguistic and social identities. This paper engages with research conducted in three Cape Town schools and develops the idea of “narratives of social cohesion” to articulate the ways in which different school cultures influence learner-identity formation. It posits that the assumed neutrality of the primary medium of instruction, and its historic association with whiteness, represents a continued undervaluation of black learners’ linguistic and social experiences

Social cohesion and initial teacher education in South Africa

Initial teacher education (ITE) is a key focus in current policy particularly in respect to shaping student teachers' dispositions and capabilities to effect change within the systems they will work, and for the learners they will teach. Teachers' pedagogic strategies also mediate inequalities and continuities within the education system, linked to the schooling system and society they operate within. In South Africa, contextually relevant pedagogical strategies that address diversity, reconciliation, and promote social cohesion are crucial to enable initial teacher education to prepare teachers in this way (Sosibo, 2013). This paper draws on data from a case study of an ITE programme at one higher education institution (HEI) in South Africa. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers, focus groups, documentary analysis, and a survey of initial teacher educators, and was part of a large-scale study that focused on teachers as agents of social cohesion in South Africa (Sayed et al., 2015). Specifically, it considers how student teachers are prepared to enact social cohesion in the classroom. The paper concludes by discussing several implications of the research for ITE in South Africa

Social cohesion, violence and education in South Africa

The chapter explores how education and teachers are conceptualised within policymaking in relation to building social cohesion in South Africa. More specifically, it considers the intended educational goals of social cohesion initiatives, its value in schools in reducing societal conflict, and its objective to foster enduring forms of social justice and peace in everyday life. On the one hand, teachers play key roles in influencing the personal identities of learners, as well as the development of their values of respect and tolerance. On the other hand, their contribution is shaped by the ways in which structural inequalities, including the distribution of education opportunities, influence what they are able to do as teachers. The chapter asserts that to restore trust and build durable peace and social cohesion, and to stem violence and conflict in society, it is important to provide equal access to quality education, where teachers act as key agents of change. It is argued that education policies and programmes can contribute to greater social cohesion when they promote redistribution (equity), recognition (of diversity), representation (engagement), and reconciliation (dealing with grievances, injustice, and legacies of conflict). Through analyses of policies on social cohesion and education, the chapter considers the implications of social cohesion initiatives for teachers and for the provision of equitable quality education in South Africa

Southern African review of education with education with production - Editorial notes

This special issue is organised around the theme of the 2015 South African Education Research Association (SAERA) conference, namely 'Strengthening Educational Research for Sustainable Futures', and focuses on how goals of economic development, environmental sustainability and social inclusivity are understood differently and integrated into quality education debates in the Southern African region, as well as in different institutional settings. The editors who oversaw the special issue were Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Dr Lynette Jacobs and Dr Milton Nkoan

A history of the Ottery School of Industries in Cape Town: issues of race, welfare and social order in the period 1937 to 1968

Doctor EducationisThe primary task of this thesis is to explain the establishment of the 'correctional institution', the Ottery School of Industrues, in Cape Town in 1948 and the programmes of rehabilitation, correctional and vocational training and residential care that the institution developed in the period until 1968. This explanation is located in the wider context of debates about welfare and penal policy in South africa. The overall purpose is to show how modernist discourses in relation to social welfare, delinquency and education came to South Africa and was mediated through a racial lens unique to this country. In doing so the thesis uses a broad range of material and levels from the ethnographic to the documentary and historical. The work seeks to locate itself at the intersection of the fields of education, history, welfare, penalty and race in South Africa.South Afric