On becoming and being an A-rated researcher: Conversations with South African A-rated scholars in education

Becoming and Being an A-rated Researcher in South Africa's Education Sector: Insights from A-rated Scholars   Abstract:  Located within the broader discourses on ratings of researchers affiliated to higher education institutions, this paper reveals insights into what and how one becomes an A-rated researcher.  Drawing from a conversation held amongst three A-rated scholars in Education, facilitated through a webinar organised by the South African Education Research Association, the paper illuminates their entangled journeys, associations and affordances that contributed to them receiving an A-rating through a peer-reviewed rating system managed by the National Research Foundation.  Affirmation, collaborations and generosity emerged as key features of their intra-actions within the spaces that they have and continue to occupy. &nbsp

Decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? A multiple case study

This article reports on four case studies of how higher education institutions were grappling with the demands of decolonisation of their curricula. The cases differ in form and content, and the unique approaches to decolonisation that each one takes, and the similarities displayed, are described. An important similarity among the institutions were the use of extensive public lectures, seminars and workshops as a common strategy to deal with the calls for decolonisation of the curriculum. An overarching theme in the four cases suggests that decolonising of the curriculum is predominantly characterised by symbolism and euphemism/s as a way of catering for the diverse aspirations of stakeholders in the respective institutions. Pinar’s notion of complicated conversations was used as a framework to critically comment on the multiple case studies

Assessment and social justice: Invigorating lines of articulation and lines of flight

This article is a collective project. It is a rhizome-article that is an assemblage of five heterogeneous essays that trouble dominant practices of assessment, generally, but also within the current COVID-19 pandemic. The authors problematise standardisation, measurement, quantification and other technologies of performativity that dominate contemporary assessment practices in schools and universities. In the essays, the authors invigorate lines of flight from dominant assessment practices and do so in the interest of assessment that is more humane and socially just. They point out that, as with anything else, a rhizome-article also has lines of articulation/connection and invite readers to invigorate these as they read the essays. The authors of this article draw on the works of several scholars but do so to think with them rather than having their work framed by them. Keywords: assessment, social justice, performativity, lines of articulation, lines of fligh

Engendering a Sense of Belonging to Support Student Well-Being during COVID-19: A Focus on Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 4

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a plethora of inequalities in South Africa. These inequalities have had a direct impact on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 4 (quality education) were the focus of this article. This article investigated how students enrolled at a South African residential university perceived the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their well-being, their success in completing their studies and their future career prospects. A quantitative survey research design was followed. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire from 537 students in a South African university. Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version 27 was used to analyze the data. The results indicated direct influences on student well-being from concerns that arose from COVID-19 about future job concerns, degree completion, social support and belonging. The relationship between concerns about degree completion was moderated by a sense of belonging (social identification) but not by social support. The study has significant implications for how higher education institution governors and academics might consider reconceptualizing notions of student support, beyond the narrow, technical and basic curriculum support for degree completion, towards the affective and social as it relates to creating conditions for students to identify with and experience a profound sense of belonging.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The becoming of a Curriculum Studies Special Interest Group: Reactive, interactive and intra-active complicated conversations

In this article we document the becoming of the Curriculum Studies SIG of the South African Education Research Association (SAERA). We outline the SIG’s activities since inception and theorise the work of the SIG through thinking with the ideas of scholars. For us theory is not a noun but a verb, so we prefer speaking of theorising rather than theory.  We also use writing as a mode of inquiry rather than a mode of representation. Fidelities that sustained the work of the SIG, were not because of common histories, cultures and lived experiences but because of the ethical commitment  to engage in an ongoing manner with the worthiness of knowledge - a critical conversation about what is included/excluded in teaching and learning programmes (and why). We end the article by exploring how we might re/imagine the SIG as a relational entity/assemblage, a shift from viewing complicated conversations not as interactions but as intra-actions