Teachers' literate habitus

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2015This case study explores the literate habitus of a group of 22 Foundation Phase (Grades 1-3) teachers from Limpopo Province. They were qualified, mature, practising teachers from rural areas in South Africa who left their homes, families and teaching posts to upgrade their qualifications by completing a four-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree at an urban university, the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. This intervention was unique in that it removed practising teachers from familiar fields and placed them in others for an extended period of time. In post-Apartheid South Africa there have been many teacher-training interventions which have attempted to improve classroom practice and learner performance in literacy. Despite this, South African learners continue to perform badly on national and international systemic evaluations. Classroom practice in many schools, particularly in rural areas, remains unchanged. The primary question that guides this study is that perhaps the literate habitus of teachers, which is ingrained, preconscious and embedded, produces dispositions and values that affect the way they experience, know, value and use literacy and that this is reproduced in their learners. This study attempts to understand the literate habitus of a particular group of teacher-students and to consider whether it was possible for this to shift or change over the four years of their studies. It examines how, if shifts in literate habitus did occur, what contributed to these and how these shifts affected the participants’ professional teaching practices. The case study was located within the understanding that literacy and literacy practices are always socially situated. Bourdieu’s (1977; 1984; 1988; 1990; 1991) key concepts of habitus, capital and field were used to examine the literate habitus of the research participants. The assumption underpinning this study was that how the participants spoke and wrote about literacy and how they enacted literacy reflected their literate habitus. Using reflective journals, focus groups and reports from those who observed the participants teaching, it traced the teacher-students’ journeys across four years to examine the effects on literate habitus of their being in new fields. The study’s findings confirmed the importance of fields in structuring habitus. The findings of this study suggested that a change in field was necessary for effecting a change in the literate habitus of the participants, because change denaturalised what had been accepted as a norm in literacy and literacy teaching. This change also revealed alternative ways of valuing and enacting literacy. The agency necessary to take the opportunities offered by new fields and thus to become aware of the possibilities inherent in new practices, was related to the participants’ perception of the amount of symbolic capital they would accrue in the process. This perception was controlled by their habitus in a circular relationship. This study argues that it was difficult to shift a deeply-entrenched literate habitus but that it was not impossible. The findings suggested that there were a number of factors that enabled change in the participants’ literate habitus. Firstly, it required attentiveness to the discontinuities between their embedded practices and new possibilities in the practices to which they were exposed in new fields. Meta-awareness enabled change and this was facilitated by reflection and the interrogation of both old and new literacy practices. Secondly, there needed to be a desire to change and this required time and opportunities for repeated enactments so that new ways of practicing literacy became embedded. The extent to which the participants recognised their own agency in opening up possibilities for change was essential. The findings of this study suggested that social capital was also important in bringing about change. The support from peers and the relationship with a mentor, such as a supervising teacher on teaching experience, played an essential role in bringing about change. This social capital came from how the participants were positioned in the field and this gave them the necessary power, agency and voice to transform their literate habitus. The significance of this study is located in the implications it has for future teacher-training interventions. This study has shown that experienced literacy teachers navigate a complex journey in changing their literate habitus. The study also revealed that there is no easy route to helping teachers whose literate habitus is firmly-established to learn new professional and personal literacy practices. Recommendations for further research include examining the sustainability of the shifts in literate habitus that had been enabled by this four-year intervention

Factors influencing the adoption of microenterprises and their impact in rural Guatemala

There is a growing consensus that non-agricultural income represents an important source for household support in rural areas, as the resources from agricultural production are insufficient. One wonders to what extent microenterprises (MEs) help to fight poverty and what factors motivate households to form an ME. The present investigation was carried out in El Quiché, Guatemala, a province very affected by extreme poverty, malnutrition and disintegration, due to the civil war that lasted 36 years. It is found that ME is the most significant factor in household income, but unlike what is expected, its effect on housing and nutrition is limited. Regarding the significant factors in the decision to form a ME, they include human capital, social capital, types of crops and market access. The work also explores the effect of collective activities, such as commercialization, on the development of the ME, since the implementation of fairs and community stores contributes considerably to the reduction of transaction costs and the expansion of the market.Cada vez hay mayor consenso respecto a que el ingreso no agropecuario representa una fuente importante para el sostenimiento del hogar en zonas rurales, pues los recursos provenientes de la producción agrícola son insuficientes. Cabe preguntarse en qué medida las microempresas (ME) ayudan a combatir la pobreza y qué factores motivan a los hogares a formar una ME. La presente investigación se realizó en El Quiché, Guatemala, provincia muy afectada por la pobreza extrema, la desnutrición y la desintegración, a causa de la guerra civil que duró 36 años. Se encuentra que la ME es el factor más significativo en los ingresos del hogar, pero, a diferencia de lo esperado, su efecto sobre la vivienda y nutrición es limitado. En cuanto a los factores significativos en la decisión de formar una ME, destacan: capital humano, capital social, tipos de cultivo y acceso al mercado. El trabajo explora también el efecto de las actividades colectivas, como la comercialización, en el desarrollo de la ME, ya que la implementación de ferias y tiendas comunales contribuye considerablemente a la reducción de los costos de transacción y a la ampliación del mercado

Liturgy, faith and sexual and reproductive health rights : a study of liturgical reframing in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Master of Art in Religion. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2017.Despite our excellent gender equality legislation, most women and gender nonconforming individuals in South Africa continue to suffer disproportionately from the effects of HIV, gender based violence and cultural and religious oppressions. Considering that in South Africa church membership exceeds eighty percent (the vast majority of whom are women), it is vital to better understand how churches influence some of the key drivers of these challenges, such as gender inequality and destructive perceptions about sexuality and women’s bodies. As an Anglican lay minister and gender activist, I have situated my research in the Anglican Church in Southern Africa as a postcolonial church grappling to shake off vestiges of its patriarchal colonial legacy, while remaining rooted in its liturgical inheritance. Apart from regulating worship, liturgy as a social act constructs theological concepts and relationships within dynamic social and institutional contexts that are deeply influenced by intersectional power dynamics. Employing a postcolonial African feminist theological lens, this study analyses some creative liturgical samples, inserted into the standardised An Anglican Prayer Book. It has sought to understand how liturgical language and discourse tools are employed to reconfigure social and religious assumptions about normal gender power relations, health and sexuality in ways that contribute to improved sexual and reproductive health. The findings describe how transformative liturgy employs liturgical, language and discourse tools intentionally in three strategic ways: creating a liminal space where human dignity, health and wellness can flourish, breaking the silence by addressing sexual and reproductive health rights directly in worship, and preparing worshippers to become a transformative presence in the world. A discussion about barriers to liturgical creativity in a clergy focus group conversation held, highlighted that authentic transformative liturgical praxis requires a church culture that is open to learning from the periphery. The research has identified some crucial theoretical gaps: liturgical studies are dominated by largely gender-blind, late-modernist approaches; while postcolonial and African feminist scholarship barely touches on liturgy, thus missing a crucial strategic opportunity to achieve its transformative objective. Hence, the conclusion offers some preliminary proposals towards what might, through further research, potentially become a postcolonial African feminist liturgical theology

Voice matters: Students’ struggle to find voice

Often, at universities, it is assumed that students will automatically find their ‘voice’ after a period of exposure to the academic field. What is not understood fully are the struggles that students with different levels of preparedness have in finding and asserting their academic voice, particularly in the academic writing genres necessary for success. There is a clear link between students’ ability to exercise voice and their achievement levels. The data focussed on in this article were drawn from a large assessment study that aimed at reaching an in-depth understanding of why first-year Bachelor of Education (BEd) students experience difficulty with their assessment tasks. Focus groups were held with 18 first-year volunteer BEd students. In particular, we focussed on the unique insights emerging from the data about the challenges students face in finding their voice. We identified how a lack of understanding of the purpose of assessment contributes to these struggles. Other factors that contributed to this are difficulties with the genre of academic writing, challenges with vocabulary and positioning oneself in relation to the theory. Many students appeared not to feel a sense of agency or confidence in their capabilities and have poor self-efficacy beliefs. These aspects were underpinned by the requirements of assessment and necessitate that lecturers develop pedagogical strategies to make the acquisition of voice more explicit

Theme in conversational discourse : problems experienced by speakers of Black South African English, with particular reference to the role of prosody in conversational synchrony

This study is an investigation of instances of conversational failure in interaction as evidenced by speakers of Black South African English (BSAE) , with a particular focus on the role of prosody in conversational (a)synchrony. The data analysed consist of six conversations, one SAE-SAE (South African English) encounter, four BSAE- SAE encounters and one BSAE- BSAE encounter. After a theoretical framework is set up, the analysis is conducted by means of two triangulation research processes based on Ethnomethodology. The analysis consists of an investigation into selected extracts which participants and informants alike perceived as 'stressful'. An attempt is made to isolate the sources of each instance of pragmatic failure. Prosodic features are found to be important in establishing and maintaining theme and conversational synchrony. But other factors are also involved. The analysis reveals two major influences of asynchrony: deviance in the use of (in order of importance) prosodic, lexical and syntactic cues to discourse functions; and a mismatch in the application of socio-cultural principles guiding conversational behaviour. The study leads into a brief outline of aims, objectives and conversational competence at a tertiary level and concludes with suggestions for further research

Towards a phenomenological model for a critical psychotherapy

This thesis aims to establish a model of psychotherapy that is based on experience, but which takes social structure into account. To do this it first sets up a theoretical model of psychotherapy. Thereafter the model is used to analyse four protocols as a way of examining its effectiveness. The analysis of the protocols provides the basis for coming to certain conclusions about the nature of psychotherapy. The theoretical phase first examines the area traditionally known as etiology, but here the approach is from a broadly existential perspective. Thus this section starts by proposing a view of human nature, and then it goes on to say how this nature comes to be disrupted. The influence of the broader social context upon human existence is also considered here. Secondly, there is an attempt to understand how psychotherapy works. Drawing on existential and cultural anthropological material, various themes of psychotherapy are examined, and these are then placed within their social context. Finally, the theoretical phase brings together the themes emerging from the two foregoing sections and integrates them into a single model of "etiology" and "cure". In the following chapter, the adequacy of this model is examined by using it to analyse four protocols written by subjects on their experience of therapy. In the final chapter various conclusions are drawn

Analysis of the temperature influence on Langmuir probe measurements on the basis of gyrofluid simulations

The influence of the temperature and its fluctuations on the ion saturation current and the floating potential, which are typical quantities measured by Langmuir probes in the turbulent edge region of fusion plasmas, is analysed by global nonlinear gyrofluid simulations for two exemplary parameter regimes. The numerical simulation facilitates a direct access to densities, temperatures and the plasma potential at different radial positions around the separatrix. This allows a comparison between raw data and the calculated ion saturation current and floating potential within the simulation. Calculations of the fluctuation-induced radial particle flux and its statistical properties reveal significant differences to the actual values at all radial positions of the simulation domain, if the floating potential and the temperature averaged density inferred from the ion saturation current is used.Comment: Submitted to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusio