An investigation of the pedagogic and contextual factors that contribute to learner achievement levels in South Africa : a study of selected public schools in the Western Cape

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDPoor performance by South African students especially in literacy and numeracy are at a level of national crisis. Theory, as well as international and national systemic tests, show that the reasons for this is both multiple and extremely complex. In this study I investigated the problems relating to learner achievement levels in South African education. The main question arising from this problem, which I addressed, is: What are the possible factors that contribute to learner achievement levels in South Africa? My conceptual focus is on pedagogic practices and the socialization of identity, and how these relate to learner achievement levels, working from the premise that children from different social classes experience schooling differently. My focus is on the classroom, phase and school contexts, whilst locating these in the wider national, continental and global contexts. The disciplinary approach used in this study is in the domain of sociology of education, drawing specifically on the work of leading sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein. Bourdieu’s notions of ‘habitus’, ‘field’ and ‘cultural capital’ helped in understanding structure and agency, and the interiority and exteriority of social relations, whereas Bernstein’s ‘code theory’ and his work on curriculum, pedagogic practices and pedagogic discourse was used to describe how formal knowledge is realized and transmitted, and its effects on different social groupings. Methodologically, this study is located within a qualitative interpretivist research paradigm. Research was conducted in three purposively selected public primary schools in the Western Cape using a qualitative multiple case study research design. The bounded cases were Grades 1, 4 and 7 learners in relation to their teachers and principals. The rationale for selecting these particular cases stems from the fact that research in these particular areas of schooling is lacking. The significance of the study lies in the fact that previous research on learner achievement used teacher behaviour as a predictor for achievement, whereas this study focused primarily on learner behaviour and the learners’ views on their own achievement. The study employed in-depth data collection procedures including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and various document related sources. The contextual analysis reveals that there is clearly a need to understand the nature of the learner, what they bringing into school and how they make sense of schooling. Furthermore, it shows that the ways in which learners exercise their agency is reinforcing underachievement. It further reveals that teachers are under pressure to get learners to adhere to the middle-class ethos of schooling and as a result are pushed into the regulative discourse compromising the instructional discourse within pedagogy. Pedagogically, the analysis reveals that teachers are under pressure in terms of curriculum coverage having to work within restricted time-frames, and having to meet the requirements of the ANAs that they do not see the possibility to relax framing in terms of pacing. As a result they are leaving their learners behind. Furthermore, the unnecessary strong framing at the level of pacing, not making the evaluation criteria explicit, and the heavy reliance on systemic testing, as in the case of the ANAs, is creating homogenised and standardised learner identities, which translate into differential learner experiences and ultimately differential learner achievement levels.National Research Foundation (NRF

The manifestations of the practice of within-class homogeneous ability grouping

This article casts the analytical spotlight on the practice of within-class homogeneous (same) ability grouping where learners are placed in small groups for instruction based on their perceived performances, reading levels and interest. Very few studies have focused on within-class ability grouping, especially in a South African context, where this homogeneous style within-class grouping is the dominant practice in Grade 1 classrooms, despite literature’s cautions against its continuous use.This article aims to address the following questions: what are the manifestations of the practice of within-class homogeneous ability grouping, and how does it account for learner achievement levels in Grade 1 classrooms?

An ethnographic study of the learning practices of grade 6 students in an urban township school in the Western Cape: a sociological perspective

Magister Educationis - MEdThe study's main starting premises is that there is a disjuncture between the rich educational engagements of these students in their environmental space and how their learning practices are framed, informed and positioned in the institutional space. My study is underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm in terms of which I set out to describe and understand the meanings that the student respondents assign to their learning practices when they are involved in discursive practices of speaking, knowing, doing, reading and writing. Qualitative research instruments: field notes, participant and non-participant observations and formal and informal interviews were used in order to answer my research question and achieve the desired research aims of this thesis. The findings are presented in a narrative format after deriving at categories and themes using narrative analysis. Finally, my research shows how these students are positioned in and by their lived spaces (whether environmental or institutional) in specific ways, and they, based on their own resources, networks and interactions, and by exercising their agency, actively construct their own spaces of learning. I describe these active constructions by these students as their 'conceptual space of learning' to highlight the complex ways in which they go about to establish their learning practices in their lived spaces. The study provides an analysis of the basis upon which each of these four students go about constructing their learning practices.South Afric

A quasi-ethnographical exploration of how young learners establish their learning practices in their environmental space: The township community and their homes

This paper explores how two selected learners establish their learning practices in their environmental space, that is, their township community and home space. The study combines the lenses of “Space” and “Learning” to capture their movement in and around the township showing how they inhabit space, how they interact with networks and processes in their environment, and how they ultimately transcend their spatial positioning. Methodologically, this quasi-ethnographic study, underpinned by an interpretivist metatheoretical framework, draws on my field notes, verbatim responses acquired through interviews with these children and their parents, observations of their neighbourhood and their homes, photographs and artefacts. These qualitative research tools helped to address the main research question: What is the nature of the learning practices of learners in the environmental space; that is: the space of the township community and home? The results show that these learners and their parents produce multiple and hybrid literacies and engage in rich educational practices despite the lived realities of the township space. Furthermore, it shows that learners develop a productive agency to counterpoise their spatial positioning enabling them to become co-constructors of their lived space

Problematizing the concept ‘epistemological access’: A review of literature

This paper provides a review of literature which aims at problematizing the concept ‘epistemological access”, a fairly under-researched topic in South African education. Morrow’s distinction between formal access (institutional access) and epistemological access (access to the goods distributed by the institution) is used as a conceptual framework. We argue that the meaning of the concept ‘epistemological access’ as Morrow intended was borne out of a particular political need that arose in higher education; the need to democratize access to higher education. The dearth of literature on the concept “epistemological access” and its meaning for access to basic education, especially foundation phase schooling, therefore warranted this literature review