Browsing by Author "Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie."
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Item Conceptions of teacher commitment : a narrative inquiry of primary school teachers in township schools.(2014) Makhanya, Percival Mandlakhe.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This thesis explores teachers’ meanings of commitment in two township public primary schools. The purpose of exploring teacher commitment is to examine how teachers’ meanings of commitment inform what they do and how they do it in the classroom. In documenting the teachers’ conceptualisations of these meanings, I use re-constructed teacher stories to re-tell the teachers’ experiences of a committed teacher. In reconstructing the stories of teachers’ meanings of commitment, I use multiple methods of collecting data which includes artefact retrieval, collage inquiry, and unstructured interviews. This qualitative study is located within the interpretivist paradigm and uses narrative inquiry as a methodology. The four experienced teacher participants teaching in two township primary schools were purposively selected for this study. All the four teacher participants in this study have been in the teaching profession for more than fifteen years. This study employs the teacher identity theory to understand the sources of meanings that teachers give to commitment. In this study, I use the three types of perceptual relevance: interpretive, motivational and topical relevance (Schutz, 1970) to explore how personal and professional experiences enable teachers to form the meanings they give to commitment as well as their behaviour in the classroom. The findings in this study reveal that teachers’ meanings of commitment are varied and can also be the same. The analysis in this study revealed that teachers are aware that their roles as teachers go beyond the book. It further includes teaching beyond the classroom, for instance, engaging the learners in extra-mural activities and providing personal and professional well-being. In dealing with complexities and challenges in the teaching profession, the teacher participants draw energy from different sources, for instance, their families, significant others and being life-long learners. Through this study I became aware of the importance of personal lived experiences and the role played by being a life-long learner in understanding teacher commitment and in informing teacher behaviour. The use of identity theory in this study revealed that the personal informs the professional, and the personal and the professional are not fixed. However, in this study teacher further emphasises the importance of being intellectuals. In order to produce committed and caring learners, teachers need to be seen as committed and caring teachers (modelling theory, Lake et al., 2004). In understanding teacher participants engagement with learners in the classroom, the struggles that teachers face, drive teachers to engage in personal and professional well-being of self. The personal well-being is inculcated by drawing on personal beliefs, personal relationships and personal desires. The professional well-being of self is achieved through engaging in further learning.Item Conceptions of teachers as experts : a narrative inquiry.(2017) Tuta, Christopher Lungile.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This study explores conceptions of teachers as experts through memory work within the Pinetown district. The main purpose was to gain a deeper understanding of who is an expertteacher and what attributes do expert teachers have? Furthermore, how do these attributes inform what knowledge teachers acquire in the process of becoming experts? And how and where do expert-teachers acquire their knowledge to become experts? This is a qualitative study underpinned by an interpretive paradigm using narrative inquiry as a methodology. Four teachers at different levels were selected for this study. The participants are qualified teachers employed by the department of education. Using multiple methods that included open-ended unstructured interviews, portfolio inquiry, artefact inquiry and collage inquiry, data was generated to reconstruct four storied narratives of each teacher, about their lived experiences as experts. The analysis found that expert-teachers have different attributes based on personal and professional knowledge that warrants them to be classified as experts. The study also found that expert-teachers have a sense of resilience as well as a passion for teaching and learning. They also value result-driven practice, possess a winning mentality, are able to win the hearts and minds of their learners, are intuitively inquisitive, have a sense of responsibility, always searching for more pedagogical knowledge, are always hungry for content knowledge, act as agents of change and are humble and exemplary in nature and in their professional capacity. The study revealed that expert-teachers have content, curriculum and pedagogical knowledge, learned the value of education from an early age from their parents, family and community members, possess organisational knowledge, as well as knowledge of networking and of working through professional clusters. The study also revealed that teachers develop as a result of the space given to them. They learn through the process of induction and mentoring, professional development programmes, expert supervision, motivation by their school management teams (SMT), school culture and an emotionally friendly and healthy environment that allows them to engage in the process of development to the level of becoming an expert.Item Cultivating professional agency: stories of novice teachers in public primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal.(2018) Thilakdhari, Jayshree.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research dissertation entitled ‘Cultivating Professional Agency: Stories of Novice Teachers in Public Primary Schools in KwaZulu-Natal’ presents an understanding of the lived personal and professional experiences of novice teachers and the ways in which they cultivate professional agency in public primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal. This research study aimed at generating in-depth information in order to explore and understand deeply the novice teachers’ stories of cultivating professional agency. This study was conducted with a specific group of novice teachers. Each of the four research participants are either a male or female; Indian or African; a Foundation Phase, Intermediate Phase or Senior Phase teacher; and are teaching in quintile rank 5 public primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This qualitative research study is located within the interpretivist paradigm and uses narrative inquiry as the research methodology. This allowed me to understand the lived experiences of the novice teachers from the perspective of the participants as they negotiated their meanings of self. Multiple methods of generating data were used for this research study, which included: collage inquiry, artefact retrieval, metaphor drawing and unstructured interviews. The data generated allowed me to produce rich and thick stories of novice teachers. From the storied narratives, I was able to get glimpses of their lives as novice teachers and understand how they make meaning of self in their public primary schooling context in KwaZulu-Natal. The storied narratives were then analysed and interpreted through storied vignettes and themes. According to literature, novice teachers possess a weak sense of professional agency. However, the analysis and interpretation of this research study revealed that Luke, Lucy, Diya and Zenzile (pseudonyms) negotiated particular meanings of self, learning practices and relationships in and through which they exercised their professional agency in order to be agentic novice teachers within their public primary schooling contexts in KwaZulu-Natal. This research dissertation contributes uniquely to the field of education, more specifically adding to the growing body of knowledge on novice teachers and professional agency in public primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Item Does the cascade model work for teachers? : an exploration of teachers' experiences on training and development through the cascade model.(2008) Shezi, Victor Sibusiso.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This study sought to understand what training and development the teachers experienced through the cascade model. In asking the question, “Does the cascade model work for teachers?” I produced data through the exploration of the experiences of teachers, whose training for the implementation of the Integrated Quality Management System at schools was through the cascade model. The critical questions posed in the study were, firstly, what are the building blocks that constitute the cascade model? Secondly, how did the School Training Teams experience their training and development on the cascade model, based on the core guiding principles? Thirdly, what are the experiences of teachers at school level, on their training and development by School Training Teams for the implementation of IQMS? Using Zeichner’s paradigms of teacher development (1993) as the theoretical lens through which to understand how training and development was experienced through the cascade model, I read and interpreted the workings of the model in terms of the four paradigmatic positionings – Traditional-craft, behaviorist, personalistic and inquiry oriented perspectives. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, I accessed three high schools in the Port Shepstone District to participate in this study. The data sources used to produce the data included the IQMS Provincial Training Manual (used by the provincial facilitators for the training of School Training Teams); individual semi-structured interviews of the Provincial IQMS facilitators; interviews of the School Training Team members who were responsible for cascading IQMS to teachers at school level, and survey questionnaires to teachers of the schools that participated in this study. The findings of the study show that the process of teacher development through the cascade model has not only resulted in the teachers engaging in ‘strategic simulation’ about change and ‘intensification’ of the work they do, but has to a greater extent, also led to teacher de-professionalization. Although ‘disruption’ was unearthed in the middle tiers of the cascade, by and large, the intent of change at both levels, bureaucratic and school, was tactical and strategically simulated. I conclude that the continued employment of the cascade as the model for teacher development and training perpetuates a technicist approach of what it means to be a teacher and reduces teachers work to a de-intellectualising practice.Item Educational journeys of foundation phase teachers in the context of curriculum change.(2016) Moodley, Indrani.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This thesis presents an understanding of the experiences and negotiation of curriculum changes by Foundation Phase Teachers in three urban primary schools in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. In documenting the stories of three Foundation Phase teachers lived experiences of the various curriculum changes, I was able to get glimpses into their personal- professional lives. The study is located within the qualitative mode of inquiry in the interpretivist paradigm and the Narrative Inquiry method was used to help me understand and interpret the experiences and development of Foundation Phase teachers in the context of curriculum change. In the absence of support strategies and processes by the externally driven professional development programmes to support teachers emotionally and psychologically, I used Dale and James’ (2013) discussion on “affective containment” to understand Foundation Phase teachers’ emotional and psychological tensions in educational reform. Illeris (2009) is used to understand how the containment of Foundation Phase teachers’ feelings, moods and tensions during the change process is necessary for providing the incentive for learning and effective functioning of teachers. I used Bell and Gilbert’s Model on Teacher Development to understand how learning happened for Foundation Phase teachers on the personal, social and professional levels. The study contributes to our understanding of how the lack of containment of feelings on the personal levels may have led to tensions, anxiety and stress for Foundation Phase teachers. This study also reflects on teacher training and development which may not have considered the emotions and feelings of teachers in the change process. New curriculum changes created a need for Foundation Phase teachers to re-professionalise and reskill themselves to enable them to implement the reforms in their classrooms. However, the findings revealed that the cascade model actually led to the de-professionalisation of teachers which demotivated and frustrated them. Personal and professional learning experiences of Foundation Phase teachers are built on commitment and reflection of their professional practices through self-initiated learning within contextualised communities of practice.Item Educational journeys of international postgraduate students studying at UKZN (University of KwaZulu-Natal) : a narrative inquiry.(2012) Rajpal, Roseann.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.In studying postgraduate students’ lived experiences and their learning moments in their postgraduate studies, my study offers a deeper understanding of who these African, international, postgraduate students are and how they negotiate their learning experiences within the various social, personal and professional spaces at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). I explored postgraduate students’ lived experiences in higher education within the context of internationalisation. My study is located within a qualitative research approach which allows me to understand the postgraduate students’ lived experiences in higher education from the perspective of the participants, as they negotiate and construct particular meanings of self and learning.Using a narrative inquiry approach offered me the opportunity to reflect on the diversity, richness and complexities involved in understanding the personal and professional learning experiences of postgraduate international students studying in higher education. The research methods used included life history interviews, collage and photo voice to understand the complexities, challenges and highlights of studying in a foreign country. The data generated enabled me to produce rich and vivid narrative accounts of their learning.Through narrative analysis, two reconstructed students' stories were produced. The findings of the data show that international students are faced with both positive and negative learning experiences. Particular meanings of self shaped by dominant discourses and practices in their homeland shape who they are as international postgraduate students. The study concludes that these African, international, postgraduate students’ personal, social and professional identities are negotiated on a daily basis within the postgraduate learning. Their professional space offered them a platform to realise their goals at UKZN as international students.Item An exploration study of schooling as a site of promoting a culture of nonviolence.(2009) Gcabashe, Marilyn.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This study sought to understand what the schools do to promote the culture of nonviolence. In asking the question, "How do school work to develop a culture of nonviolence?" I produced data through the exploration of the activities and practices implemented in school. The critical question and sub question posed in the study were, firstly, how do school work to promote the culture of nonviolence? Secondly, how does the SMT do to promote the culture of nonviolence? Thirdly, how do teachers manage their teaching and learning activities to promote the culture of non-violence? Fourthly, how do learners experience the different activities and practices that the school adopts to promote the culture of nonviolence? Using Satyagraha theory as the theoretical lens for the study, I offer an understanding on how the school as a site offers the potential to promote nonviolence. Using a participatory research approach, I used one secondary school in ILembe District to participate in this study. The data sources used to produce the data included the individual interviews, focus group interviews, photo voice, classroom conversations and observations. The findings of the study show that within the physical environment of the school, different stakeholders attempt to actively adopt non-violent ways within the particular and common spaces of the school to develop in learners the capacity to differentiate between personal and societal forms of violence. The findings signal the need of a stronger partnership with other systems of the society such as the family system, social service, police service, media and the public at large since learners learn different forms of personal and social violence from different spaces and through different relations. The school is one system of a larger system and the study shows that it can not predict, control or remove the forms of violence that play out outside of the school and in individuals who choose to think and act in violent ways. Learners and teachers also bring violence to school. This study promotes the perspective that there are activities and strategies needed to be done inside and outside the classroom to promote non-violence, but this can be easily undermined in the absence of support mechanisms and structures at multiple levels outside of the school. While the school, through different strategies and practices such as morning assembly and surveillance mechanisms can help learners to differentiate between personal and societal forms of violence although some learners and teachers within the school still act in a violent way.Item An exploratory analysis of postgraduate educational research in language and race in South Africa : a case study of three universities in the Western Cape in the decade 1995-2004.(2012) Lekena, Liile Lerato.; Rule, Peter Neville.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.The objective of this research was to determine the factors that influence application of non-parametric analysis technique. The data emanated from research done by postgraduate students over a ten year period (1995-2004) and archived by the project in postgraduate education research (PPER). A survey of three South African universities was conducted. The classification of researches from chosen prominent universities were made by research title, research topic, target population, data collection method, and other diversity titles which were used to map the position of non-parametric analysis. The research amongst the three (3) universities included four hundred and twenty-one (421) sampled researches of which only twenty nine (29) were in Language and Race issues. The first finding indicated that the data of the sampled researches were all analysed using content analysis. Secondly, the findings suggested that there was a relationship between research title and data analysis technique. Lastly, the dominant theme amongst the sampled researches was Language although in many instances when language issues are being researched, race issues are inherently being researched either purposefully or coincidentally. There is a relationship between the history of the institutions and the kinds of research they produce.Item Exploring teacher learning through memory work in a teacher development studies postgraduate programme : a narrative inquiry.(2014) Ramadeen, Vidantha.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.The South African education system prior to democracy in 1994 was influenced by the apartheid ideology. Since 1994, various educational reforms were introduced by the new democratic Government. In order to democratise education and eliminate the inequalities of the past, teachers are negotiating their learning and unlearning through a variety of self-driven initiatives. South African teachers’ lives are a rich storehouse of information and tapping into this treasure trove of teachers’ memories through memory work has rewarding effects for teaching and learning. This study explores teacher learning through memory work in a Teacher Development Studies (TDS) postgraduate programme at a university in South Africa. The main purpose was to gain a deeper understanding of what and how memory work has enabled teacher learning on a personal, professional and social level and whether this elicited change in the teachers’ lives - how they feel, what they think and how they act in the position they inhabit in South African schools. This qualitative research study was located within an interpretivist paradigm using narrative inquiry as a methodology. Four postgraduate teacher participants teaching in various schools were purposively selected for this study. All participants had completed the Bachelor of Education Honours programme at a university in KwaZulu-Natal. Drawing on multiple methods and strategies that included open-ended, unstructured interviews, portfolio inquiry and collage inquiry, data was generated to reconstruct four storied narratives of teachers’ lived lives and their learning. The analysis revealed that in the postgraduate programme that the participants completed, the module employed memory work as a pedagogical tool, and this afforded them certain opportunities that engaged them in the active process of remembering and revising their memories in the process of creating a new image of themselves as South African teachers. In getting to understand their personal and professional self through memory work, learning became more meaningful and the participants responded to change. Teacher learning through story-telling, we conclude is an important pedagogical tool to link the past to the present for the future. The module enabled the participants to tell their stories and learn about themselves, and healing became part of their learning. In healing, they learnt to recreate themselves as people and as teachers. Teachers’ personal, professional and social learning worked in entangled, non-linear ways because of the processes and conditions that were set up and that evolved spontaneously through the process of memory work. It is these conditions in which teacher learning through memory work happens, that makes the potential for reinvention possible. The relationships that were built between the teacher learners extended to different spaces. Teacher learning happens collectively and individually in physical and virtual ways. Teacher learning for development and change is a non-linear, complex and mediated process.Item Leadership for learning in Zimbabwean secondary schools: narratives of school heads.(2020) Chiororo, Freedom.; Naicker, Inbanathan.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.School heads (principals) play a major role in ensuring that teaching and learning are the core activities of the school. Some school heads fail to lead teaching and learning effectively resulting in poor academic achievement in their schools. This study presents the storied lives of four successful school heads in Zimbabwe who strengthen the quality of teaching and learning through facilitating leadership for learning practices. The study aims to understand who the school heads leading learning in Zimbabwean secondary schools are, what meanings and understandings they draw on as leaders for learning, and how these meanings and understandings shape their leadership-for-learning practices. Hallinger’s Leadership for Learning model and social identity theory frame this interpretive study drawing on narrative inquiry as methodology. Narrative interviews, visual-arts-based methods (artefact and collage inquiry) and a transect walk were used to generate field texts. Data analysis occurred at two levels: narrative analysis, and analysis of narratives. The researcher co-constructed with the four participants their stories in a bid to understand their experiences. A deconstruction of the narratives (analysis of the narratives) found that school heads are identified in multiple ways according to their personal and professional context, emotions, roles and responsibilities, based on their past and present experiences. This includes who they want to become in the future (their “future self”). Their identities are transformative in nature, and are constantly renegotiated through experiences. The school heads’ personal and professional meanings and understandings were interrelated, and directly influenced their leadership for learning practices. The study concluded that care as an emotion influences instruction, as reflected in the school heads’ personal and professional meanings and understandings. Their socio-cultural contexts, in particular being African foregrounded native values such as hunhu and dare. Importantly, adopted western values such as Christianity, had great influence on the school heads’ identity, personal and professional meanings and understandings of self and their leadership-for-learning practices. Lastly, leadership for learning is seen as a process in which school heads utilise phronesis or “practical wisdom” to lead learning, using the 3 R’s: Review, Reflect and Re-evaluate.Item Leaving home. a narrative inquiry of African Women's post graduate educational experiences at a South African university.(2018) Saloojee, Sheeren.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research presents an understanding of the worlds of African women students studying postgraduate education. In documenting their life stories, I composed a research text that explored the resistances and complicities, identities and differences, changes and shifts that characterised how African women performed their alternate self to the dominant domestic keeper identity. Working with Lona, Prudence, Zandile, and Thabile, I composed stories of their lived educational experiences, offering an interpretation of their pathways to becoming postgraduate students at a South African University. Channelled by a narrative inquiry approach within the critical feminist paradigm, I used a multiple method approach for the generation of data, including long unstructured interviewsand visual inquiry methods, to respond to key research questions that drove my curiosity. These methods helped the African postgraduate women to articulate what is beneficial to their success and acceptance in the university. Positioned from African feminist standpoint theory, I zoomed into these marginalised spaces to understand how identities and meanings of the African woman self were opened to different ways of being. Positioning my story alongside theirs, as an insider, enabled me to uncover multiple stories, mine and theirs, of marginalisation, oppression, patriarchy, alienation and cultural surveillance inside and outside their homes.Item The myth of caring and sharing : teaching and learning practices in the context of HIV/AIDS education in the intermediate phase.(2005) Jacob, Loganayagie.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research presents an understanding of the teaching and learning practices in the context of HIV/AIDS education in the intermediate phase. Against a milieu of change and restructuring in education is the HIV/AIDS education curriculum which teachers are expected to deal with in schools. From an identity perspective, I try to understand how teaching practices which are adopted by teachers in the teaching of HIV/AIDS education either challenges or perpetuates the status of HIV/AIDS in society. Therefore the focus of this study is primarily the teacher. By employing Samuel's Forcefield Model as a structure for this study, I demonstrate how the choices that the teacher makes in teaching practice, are shaped by a range of diverse forces, which are frequently in conflict with each other. In this study I want to understand how teachers are engaging with their new roles and multiple responsibilities (as described in The Norms and Standards for Teacher Educators) when teaching HIV/AIDS education in the intermediate phase - given that this aspect is a relatively new dimension to the curriculum. From a methodological perspective, the collection and analysis of data were consistent with the Hermeneutic research paradigm. For the purpose of this study interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data from educators. Furthermore, in order to present a more holistic picture of the teacher and to ascertain to what extent, what the teacher teaches is actually what the learner learns, data was also collected from learners via observations, conversations and through an analysis of drawings and poems. It must be emphasised that although learners in this study play a pivotal role as sources of data, they are not the unit of analysis for this study. Thus the major part of this thesis focuses on the teacher. The findings of this study indicate that the guiding principles of a teacher's life, such as race, religion and culture are important forces that mould what, why and how teachers teach HIV/AIDS education in the intermediate phase. On the other hand, the forces that mould learners' experiences of HIV/AIDS education is determined by the social environment that the learner lives in. The forces that shape what the teacher does are not the same as the forces that shape what the learner learns. The concept of 'othering' is predominant in the interactions between teachers and learners and teachers are socially distanced from learners, parents and the child's social environment. Hence the 'caring and sharing' as espoused by teachers is not being articulated in practice.Item Narratives of novice teachers in a private Catholic school.(2014) Pillay, Leighandri.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This thesis presents an understanding of the personal-professional selves of Novice Teachers (NTs) teaching in a Private Catholic School in Durban. This study documents the lived lives of NT’s. By reconstructing the narratives of three NT participants, I was able to get glimpses into their meaning-making of selves, what they do, think, feel and act within the context of a Private Catholic School. Looking at NTs meaning-making of self through an identity lens, I present an understanding of the negotiations that occur within the NTs’ personal-professional lives. For each participant there are certain forces at play that push and pull the NT. This research study is located within the interpretative paradigm. Multiple methods were used to generate the data. I used the mediums of collage, artefact and unstructured interviews to obtain my data on the personal-professional lives of Kerusha, Sarah and Elizabeth. The process of gathering and interpreting the data went through various stages until I was able to reconstruct three narratives of the participants’ lived lives. One’s personal-professional self within this distinctive educational environment is negotiated through critical relationships, routines, practices and the rigorous curriculum. NT’s experience many challenges when they enter the profession. This study offers an in-depth experience of NT’s negotiations. This unique contribution to the field of education, adds further understanding and impetus to the growing body of work, that seeks to explore NT selves and NT’s teaching in Private Religious Schools in South Africa. Within the broader, fixed religious schooling environment NT’s cannot exercise agency. My study shows how Kerusha, Sarah and Elizabeth negotiate the challenges they experience within the classroom space by adopting certain practices to be powerful, agentic teachers. A unique, flexible self, creative, non-traditional self and activist, reflective self is how these NTs sustain themselves, through exercising agency in the classroom and with learners. In the absence of induction and mentoring, NT’s in this study formed informal collective learning relationships and individual learning relationships to discuss, manage and cope with the everyday challenges. Through improvising and working spontaneously NTs are able to rethink and rework their meanings and are therefore able to reconstruct their identities.Item Narratives of self-directed professional development : practices, learning and change of teachers in South African schools.(2012) Govender, Rosaline.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research study is an exploration of the self-directed professional development of teachers, teaching in public schools in an era of democracy and educational change in South Africa. Amidst an ever-changing educational system, these teachers - Mbeje, Shabeer, Carolina, Shakila and Tasneem - position themselves as self-directed teacher-learners. As self-directed teacher-learners they adopt particular learning practices which enable change within the broader discourses of public schooling. Life-story interviews were used to enter into the public and private spaces of these five teachers which offered me glimpses of how particular systems shaped their identities, and how the meanings of teacher-learner shaped their learning practices. I employed the thematic restorying approach to represent the narratives. Through collaboration with the teachers in this study, I identified critical moments in their lives which shaped their self-directed learning for change within the broader discourses of public schooling. The reconstructed narratives are located within the social, political and educational systems of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa Positioning this study in the critical paradigm, I developed a multi-layered framework of analysis and interpretation. I offer my interpretations of the stories through three lenses: restorying the field texts - the self through story; the teacher-learner in relation to socio-cultural contexts, and practices of self-directed learning. This study shows that as teacher-learners learn for change through self-directed learning , they develop their agency as transformative intellectuals, which is necessary for the reworking of South African public schools. Self-directed learning is critical for the transformation of the teacher-learner: as their race, class and gender meanings are disrupted for new meanings of teacher- learner. In their becoming they consciously and subconsciously create a “new professional teacher-learner” for South African public schooling.Item On becoming a teacher : novice teachers' experiences of early professional learning.(2013) Swart, Marinda Elizabeth.; Samuel, Michael Anthony.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This study explored the Early Professional Learning (EPL) of Novice Teachers (NTs) in the process of becoming a teacher within a South African context. The main purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of Early Professional Learning acquired by Novice Teachers within the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) phase and the Novice Teacher Induction (NTI) phase in the first employing school. Research literature used in this study has indicated the divides and discontinuities between the world of university and the world of schooling. A systems thinking approach proved useful in helping to understand both the disconnectedness and the connectedness between learning spaces/phases of the university ITE programme and the school’s NTI environment. This research study was located within an interpretative case study design. Six Novice Teacher participants teaching in various schools were purposively selected for this study. All participants had studied for their professional qualification at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. A multiple method approach was used for the generation of data, including semi-structured interviews with each participant, which took place over a period of eighteen months. The process of data gathering and interpretation went through various stages to produce a story portrait of each participant. Using a visual interpretative representation technique in this study was a worthwhile research tool for validation and added another layer of meaning making to understanding EPL. The findings were that the two systems of university and school offered conflicting spaces that impacted on the NTs’ EPL. The university-site offered open protective spaces for learning that were underpinned by conditions of trust, that involved communities of learning, and that encouraged an individual voice. In contradiction, the schools seemed to operate on a deficit approach as they failed to provide useful formalised planned sources (opportunities) for the EPL of NTs. Workplace conditions were categorised by hierarchical power struggles, unhealthy staff conflicts and the lack of socialisation of the NT into the new workplace environment. The absence of and limitations in basic induction practices at a centralised or whole school level nonetheless generated professional agency and autonomy within the NT. Early Professional Learning took the form of personalised- professional learning as the NT-Self emerged as the connecting element within the learning system. The metaphor of the radar monitoring system is presented as a summative illustration of the NT-Self in navigating the EPL system.Item On being a rural origin health care professional: lives, learnings and practice.(2016) Ross, Andrew John.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.Rural origin health care professionals (HCPs) have been identified as those who are most likely to work in rural areas after graduation. However, there are significant challenges of access, selection and throughput for South African rural students wanting to train as HCPs. Many studies have focused on strategies for staffing rural healthcare facilities. However a life history approach has not previously been used to study the educational experiences of rural origin HCPs in South Africa, and there is a paucity of data about the lived personal and professional educational experiences of rural origin HCPs and their experiences of returning to work in rural areas after graduation. A deeper understanding of these issues using a life history approach may help in supporting rural origin students and contribute to improved staffing levels at rural healthcare institutions. Social identity theory and a generative understanding of rurality provided the theoretical framing for this study. A life history approach complemented by arts-based methods generated stories through which to gain an understanding of the complex, multidimensional, multi-layered lives of HCPs who grew up in rural areas, their personal lives in relation to others, and the context in which they grew up (time, person and place). Their developing identity is seen in their performances through the choices they make in response to everyday situations. Their learning experiences are complex and reveal that as active and critical thinkers they adopted a range of strategies to succeed at institutions of higher learning, and found platforms and communities to develop as those with knowledge and agency to change/challenge dominant and stereotypical ways of being. They demonstrate their willingness and ability to work in rural contexts, leading transformation in the healthcare setting. The findings of this study point to a new understanding of rurality – that of home and a sense of belonging where the possibility for better healthcare services exists. A junctional hub is presented as a theoretical ‘model’ to frame lived experiences and to understand rural origin HCPs’ personal and professional identity and work in a complex, interconnected, negotiated space where different forces are negotiated. This provides a platform to open up the opportunity for other ways of being, knowing and practising.Item Personal narrative inquiry: exploring my childhood memories that shape my novice teacher self in a public township school.(2020) Khumalo, Siphesihle Londiwe Pamella.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This thesis presents an understanding of stories about my personal and professional self as a novice teacher in a public township school. My curiosity to explore my childhood memories of growing up and attending schools in two different contextual setting, namely, rural and urban, and presently working in a township environment, was critical for my learning as a novice teacher. I was curious to explore how my childhood experiences translate and transform my past experiences into my present approaches and ways of understanding and aspirations as a novice teacher. By using personal narrative inquiry, I was able to reflect retrospectively to remember my childhood memories and experiences that shaped, and shapes my meaning making as a novice teacher working in a township school. The kind of learning I experienced through this Masters study was a deep and insightful study that is internally driven. My stories and memories became a tool for me to resist and re-invent myself to become a better novice teacher in the future. Beauchamp and Thomas (2009)’s theoretical framework of identities has been very useful throughout my Masters study. Using Beauchamp and Thomas to explore the internal and external forces that shape the self, has made me realize that I have good and bad selves that shape my novice teacher self. There is an inextricable link between my personal and professional identities. Making visible my childhood experiences as a site for my teacher learning as a novice teacher was driven by my commitment to care for self. As well as to develop greater awareness of what informs the way I think, know and act as a teacher so I can always strive to be the best novice teacher. I found that through this research I had a remarkable opportunity for a deep and insightful study that contributed to a deeper understanding of self through the recounting and retelling of stories. Retelling of stories became a tool for me to resist and re-invent myself, the positive ramifications of which I believe will positively contribute to the improved teaching and learning experiences for both me and my learners.Item Personal-professional identities: stories of teachers’ lived dilemmatic experiences in the context of school quintiles.(2020) Ramkelewan, Reena.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.; Naicker, Inbanathan.This study, Personal-professional identities: Stories of teachers’ lived dilemmatic experiences in the context of school quintiles, explored the identities and dilemmatic experiences of five teachers who each represented one of the five school quintiles in the South African public school system. Quintiling is used in the South African educational system to categorise schools based on their poverty ranking. This qualitative study, guided by an interpretive paradigm that employed narrative inquiry, aimed to understand who these teachers were, what personal meanings shaped their professional practices as teachers, and finally, how they could negotiate their professional practices within their different school quintiles. A multiple-method approach for the generation of field texts was employed. These included narrative interviews and art-based methods (photovoice, collage inquiry and poetic inquiry) to respond to the three critical research questions. These field texts were subsequently reconstructed into research texts. The researcher drew on social identity theory, the dilemmatic space conceptual framework, the ethical dilemma decision-making model, and teacher identity theory, to produce stories that reflected the five participants’ subjective experiences. The stories encompassed critical moments of the teachers’ lives in relation to the diverse socio-cultural, historical, economic and political contexts within which they found themselves. These stories were analysed using narrative analysis and analysis of narratives. The analyses were written as storied narratives and vignettes, and attempted to understand the critical moments and experiences of my participants. The teachers’ experiences were found to be the result of socialisation within their families and the communities within which they lived. The study found that various difficulties that were a consequence of the system of school quintiling challenged the teachers professionally, emotionally, mentally and physically. In addition, dominant social identities (race, class, gender, and ethnicity, amongst others) intersected in complex ways to shape the teachers’ personal lives, and what and how they thought and acted as teachers within the context of school quintiling. The study revealed that school quintiling had consequences for the practices of these teachers. However, in undertaking their practice they were able to draw from their reservoir of past and present experiences, beliefs and values to make ethical choices in negotiating their personal-professional lives and dilemmas in the context of school quintiling.Item Portraits of rural schooling : what does it mean to be a teacher in a rural school?(2009) Saloojee, Sheeren.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research presents an understanding of being a teacher and of teacher's work in schools which are defined as 'rural'. In asking the question, "What does it mean to be a teacher in a rural school?" I produced data of their daily practices and social realities that constitute the lived experiences of teachers within the context of rural education. Employing a critical, emancipatory framework, I documented the multiple identities and meanings that emerged, and drew attention to the teachers' need for change. The need to change what rural means, what rural schooling is, becomes the space to challenge and question oppressive practices and for opportunities of freedom. Using a narrative inquiry approach, I produced data of the lives of four teachers who work in two high schools in the Vulindlela District. The data sources used to produce the data included four life history interviews, which were conducted as the main methodological strategy, critical conversations and collages. Through narrative analysis, four reconstructed teachers' stories were produced. The storied narratives are reconstructions of lives told by two groupings of teachers: constructed by teachers that commute to the rural school from one rural area to another, and those that live in the same area as the school. Through the reconstructed teacher stories, the study makes visible how gender identities read against the history and traditional coding of rural settings. It also shows how these identities narrate these individual lives in particular ways, and how the teachers threaten these spaces to rework their meanings and practices for different ways of thinking, living and working as teachers in schools in rural settings. The study contributes towards an understanding of the relationship between 'school life' and 'whole life' . The study concludes that these teachers' personal and professional identities are negotiated on a daily basis, shaping and being shaped by particular social spaces in which they live and work, and make sense of the kind of the teachers they are and want to be. The teaching and learning choices and judgments they made in their classroom are intertwined with other variables other than just teaching. Being a teacher in a school within this particular schooling context, they are challenged with conditions, and have to constantly confront them. Alongside this, teachers enacted certain practices to disrupt, and challenge stereotypical understandings and meanings that we have come to adopt about rural schooling. This study shows that these four teachers in rural schools enacted certain practices 'within the school' and 'beyond the school'. They were able to cultivate commitment, connectedness and care. We see how the notion of "Engaged Pedagogy" (Hooks, 1994) plays itself out in rural schools by teachers who work there. They cultivate this type of pedagogy through constant reflection and by engaging in practices within the formal teaching time, during lunch breaks and beyond the formal teaching time. Through ongoing reflection in how they teach and what they teach they challenge traditional oppressive practices and establish better innovative ways of thinking and working as teachers. By making the change, rurality is transforming and, therefore, rural schooling too is being transformed. The desire expressed by the four teachers to support, care and to express love for learners as a way of improving the life for the learners in the school opened up opportunities for them to excel. By learners feeling good about themselves, they were able to perform better and in this way changed the experience of rural schooling. So to answer my research question, what does it mean to be a teacher in a rural school? It meant to work 'within the school' and 'beyond the school'.Item Quality teaching and learning in rural primary school : how teachers and school managers manage with quality teaching and learning in three rural primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal.(2004) Kebeje, Allie Alfred.; Pillay, Daisy Guruvasagie.This research presents an understanding of the experiences of school managers and teachers who manage evaluate teaching and learning in rural primary schools. In documenting their experiences I composed an analytical description which explores managers' leadership choices and teachers instructional decisions (the support and accountability) measures, which characterize the responsibilities managers and school teachers engage with in their positions within the context of rural schools. In collecting data from the rural primary schools in KZN within the case study approach I employed a diverse range of research instruments and data production process. Through an analysis of selected documents, questionnaires administered to teachers and interviews conducted with a small sample of school managers and teachers I was able to make school meaning of how teachers and school managers manage teaching and learning in three rural primary schools. Emerging along two levels, leadership support and teacher accountability this research identifies particular interests and practices both teachers and managers enact out in their daily responsibility as educators. In particular I show what happens beyond accountability and support, within spaces where power relations between managers and teachers are exercised in different ways to create an educational climate appropriate for better ways of teaching and learning. Managing teaching and learning by school managers and teachers lies in their ability to engage collectively in particular practices within the rural schooling context. While teachers and managers occupied specific responsibility in their respective positions within the hierachical structures prevelant in schools, teachers and managers in these rural schools are able to move beyond' the levels creating spaces where different possibilities for change can happen personal, professional and communal. In this study creating more spaces for professional, personal and communal relations is what enables a better cultural climate conducive to school through which better ways for teaching and learning in rural schools can happen.