Project work as a vehicle for information literacy education in disadvantaged schools : an ethnographic field study of grade seven project work in a primary school in Cape Town

Abstract

Bibliography: leaves 216-228.This is a qualitative interpretive case study of project work (independent enquiry learning, also labeled topic work or theme work) in a disadvantaged South African primary school. The underlying problem was to examine the potential role of project work in the teaching of information literacy in "information poor" environments. Information literacy is recognised as a crucial outcome in the documentation of Curriculum 2005, the new South African curriculum now being phased in. An Information Skills Learning Programme has been developed and placed in the Learning Area Language, Literacy and Communication. Moreover, information skills have been a compulsory subject in the Western Cape Education Department's Interim Curriculum since 1995. Both the WCED interim curriculum and Curriculum 2005 stress continuous formative assessment via projects and portfolios. Information skills are inherent in good project work, which, internationally, is seen as the ideal context for the integrated learning of these skills. However, information literacy education internationally assumes access to a wide variety of learning resources, such as school libraries, which cannot be assumed in South African schools. The paucity of research within disadvantaged environments as well as the nature of the construct of information literacy explains the choice of methodology - exploratory ethnographic field study. An ex-House of Representatives primary school, within a historically coloured township on the Cape Flats, Cape Town, which regularly undertakes project work, was chosen. The Grade Seven class was selected as Curriculum 2005 was due to be phased in at that level in 1998. The questions framing the study aimed at finding out how projects were conducted within the school, what resources were used, how teachers managed them, and how information literate teachers were