Browsing by Author "Msimango, Welile Ntombifuthi."
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Item The experiences of rural working mothers pursuing higher degrees at a South African University.(2020) Msimango, Welile Ntombifuthi.; Msibi, Thabo.This research explored the experiences of rural working mothers pursuing postgraduate degrees at a South African university. The focus of the study was on the experiences of older women coming into higher education. After being excluded by the apartheid government when they were young, after 1994 black people were motivated to improve their qualifications. The apartheid government controlled everything pertaining to black people’s education, ensuring that black schools received inadequate resources, and had unqualified teachers and a degraded curriculum. The apartheid government also contributed to the segregation of universities, whereby black persons were prohibited from attending white universities. Instead, the apartheid government opened training colleges for police and teachers for people of colour. As a consequence, the majority of the informants in this study trained in teachers’ colleges, receiving only a three-year diploma, and were not exposed to the opportunity to complete a university degree, but were regarded as qualified teachers. The post-apartheid era opened a new book by eradicating all apartheid-linked discriminatory policies, and black people were allowed to study in previously white institutions. The women in this project therefore enrolled to study at an advanced age, while working as qualified teachers with children and other responsibilities. Adult female students, in particular, are subject to many challenges, as society and particularly their loved ones still tend to stereotype women as full-time ‘housekeepers’ responsible for the well-being of every member of the family. As a result, managing their different roles causes a lot of stress in adult female students. The intersectionality feminism and poststructural feminism theoretical frameworks have been utilised to inform this study. To investigate these women’s experiences and challenges, this study adopted a qualitative interpretative approach and involved eight informants at a South African university in KwaZulu-Natal. Each of the following were explored: 1) the profiles of rural working mothers as postgraduate students; 2) the educational and social experiences of these women; 3) how they negotiated their multiple, concurrent identities of being black women, postgraduate students, full-time workers, and mothers; and 4) the nature of the support they received during their university studies. My desire to carry out this research was prompted by the absence of research in existing scholarly studies on the experiences of rural working mothers pursuing postgraduate qualifications. The literature review also revealed that few international studies had explored women’s experiences as adult learners, whereas few local studies had looked at the academic experiences of mothers in tertiary institutions. The dearth of literature on the experiences of rural working mothers in educational settings thus posed a need for this study to be conducted. As a consequence of the ensuing investigation, this exploratory study serves as a catalyst because it opens wide the field of study into the dynamics of feminism theories in a combination of rural cultural and urban academic environments. Moreover, the study offers a significant contribution to new knowledge and potential for further investigations. This study adopted a qualitative interpretive approach for two reasons: 1) it facilitates collection of rich empirical data; and 2) it acknowledges that knowledge is socially constructed and allows informants to define, describe and tell their life stories from their own viewpoints, thus illuminating the way they experienced the phenomenon. As a consequence, the life stories offered in this study were a way of exploring and interpreting the holistic picture of rural working mothers’ experiences. A combination of verbal, visual and written data were generated employing interconnected data collection methods appropriate for the life history methodology and feminist theoretical framework that underpinned this study. A detailed thematic analysis of the data resulted in identification of five main emerging domains that had contributed in shaping the life experiences of these women: 1) impact of culture in rural women’s experiences; 2) influence of apartheid on women’s life experiences; 3) women’s social experiences; 4) women’s educational experiences; and 5) resilient women. Concerning the analyses of the many challenges the informants faced as postgraduate students in a higher education setting, the findings illuminate the contribution this study will make to knowledge building of gender scholarship in general and studies on women’s academic experiences in particular. The findings revealed the importance of a variation of support that assisted the adult working females to achieve their educational goals during their university studies. The findings further revealed that a combination of personal coping strategies had to be negotiated by the informants to pave their way to success. Moreover, the findings also showed that there was a correlation between the ontological and epistemological assumptions set before the commencement of this study. The conclusions of this study cannot be generalised and transferred to any university or to the experiences of any other postgraduate students coming from rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal, as their life stories might bring a different perspective than those shared by the informants in this project.Item An exploration of how English first language teachers teach reading to grade three learners in multilingual contexts.(2012) Msimango, Welile Ntombifuthi.; Msibi, Thabo Perceviarence.Reading plays a pivotal role in terms of learners' comprehension and understanding of what is taught in schools. Reading, as part of nation building, provides rapid and ready access to new information and knowledge that will help us in life-long learning (DoE, 2008, p.5). In the context of South Africa, where the legacy of apartheid can still be felt almost 20 years after its collapse, having literate learners becomes particularly important. This is more so the case considering the linguistic diversity of South Africa – many learners in multilingual schooling contexts of South Africa encounters reading difficulties as they are taught in a language foreign to their mother tongues. If learners cannot read there is a greater likelihood of poor academic achievement. It was therefore the intention of this study to explore how teachers who speak English as a first language teach reading to Grade Three learners in multilingual contexts. The study examined the methodologies Grade Three teachers employed in teaching reading, as well as the support they offered to Grade Three learners generally and also specifically to those learners who may not speak English as a first language. This study followed a qualitative approach and was interpretive in its paradigm. The study's methodology was that of a case study of three Grade Three teachers in one public primary school in Durban. Observations were conducted, so as to offer detailed descriptions of Grade Three teacher's actions, behaviours, and full range of interpersonal interactions between teachers and learners. The researcher also interviewed and observed teachers teaching reading. The findings revealed that teachers who speak English as a first language, in a multilingual school, experience several challenges in teaching reading to Grade Three learners - such as: teachers having to ask a lot of questions because children battle with comprehension, it takes time for English second language learners to grasp phonic sounds, and teachers have to spend a lot of time helping struggling readers. Hence a sound whole-school approach around reading can greatly smooth the process of teaching. The study found teachers who were not only competent in the teaching of reading, but who also ensured that support was given to all their learners, particularly those whose mother tongue is not English. Some key factors that helped them to overcome their challenges were: the availability of reading materials, knowledge of the reading process, planning and consistency across the grade, support from school management and the preparation of intervention strategies. The teachers also employed a variety of methods and strategies while teaching, thereby ensuring comprehension and support for the learners. The study recommends that schools should take reading seriously since it had been proven that many South African learners have poor reading abilities. This means that a whole-school approach towards reading is required. If learners are able to read well, all subjects in the school benefit.