Browsing by Author "Vithal, Renuka."

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A case study of the relationship between students' home backgrounds and their mathematics performance.
(2006) Salakoff, Barak Tom.; Vithal, Renuka.
This is an investigation explaining the relationship between the home environment and mathematics performance of 12 grade eight students from a high school in Durban, South Africa. One of the data collection methods was a 25-question test, based on the TIMSS test, namely a TIMSS equivalent mathematics test. The test was analysed and its relation to the South African syllabus, the students' familiarity with the type of questions and the multiple-choice mode of answer used in the TIMSS study, was investigated. The test scores were also used to identify high performing and low performing students to be interviewed about their mathematical, personal and home backgrounds. A student questionnaire was administered to these selected students as a basis for the interviews. An in depth one on one interview and records of the students' achievements in grade 7 and grade 8 in languages and mathematics, as well as school family records were used for the analysis. The life stories of the six high performing and six low performing students were then constructed and analysed with respect to: their achievements in mathematics and language; their home backgrounds; how their mathematics performance is affected by their home environments; and the effect of parental involvement in their lives. Finally research findings from the interviews on the home lives and experiences of the 12 grade 8 students from a high school in Durban are presented. Implications are put forward and recommendations made.
Education for rural medical practice.
(2010) Reid, Stephen John Young.; Vithal, Renuka.; Samuel, Michael Anthony.
In the context of a country and a continent that is largely rural, education for rural medical practice in Africa is relatively undocumented and poorly conceptualized. The arena of medical education in South Africa has been largely unchanged by the transition to democracy, despite intentions of reform. The literature reveals a lack of empirical evidence as well as theory in education for rural health, particularly in developing countries. This report presents twelve original papers on a range of key issues that represent the author’s contribution to filling this gap in South Africa. It aims to contribute to the development of a discourse in education for rural medical practice in an African context, and culminates in a theoretical paper regarding pedagogy for rural health. A conceptual framework is utilized that is based on the standard chronological steps in the initial career path of medical doctors in South Africa. Beginning with the literature that is focused around the need to recruit and retain health professionals in rural and underserved areas around the world, the report then addresses the policy context for medical education in South Africa, examining the obstacles to true reform of a transformatory nature. The selection of students of rural origin, and the curricular elements necessary to prepare graduates for rural practice are then investigated, including the actual career choices that medical graduates make in South Africa. Out in the workplace, the educational components of the year of compulsory community service are described, including organizational learning and apprenticeship as novice practitioners, placed under severe pressure in rural hospitals in the South African public health service. A community-oriented type of medical practice is described amongst exemplary individuals, indicating the aspiration towards a different kind of educational outcome. Finally the thesis as such is presented in the final paper regarding a theoretical basis for education for rural health, consisting of the combined notions of placed-based and critical pedagogy. It is argued that while the geographic elements of rural practice require a pedagogy that is situated in a particular rural context, the developmental imperatives of South Africa demand a critical analysis of health and the health care system, and the conceptual basis of this position is explained.
Emergent frameworks of research teaching and learning in a cohort-based doctoral programme.
(University of the Free State, 2011) Samuel, Michael Anthony.; Vithal, Renuka.
This article argues that alternate models of doctoral research teaching and learning pedagogy could address the challenge of under-productivity of doctoral graduands in the South African higher education system. Present literature tends not to focus on the models of research teaching and learning as a form of pedagogy. The article presents a case study of a doctoral cohort model programme where attention to both quantity and quality of doctoral “production” are engaged in the curriculum design and methodological approaches employed. In this alternate to the traditional “master-apprenticeship”, epistemologies that the programme creates are influenced by its pedagogical methodologies. This reflective theoretical exploration draws on the experiences of supervisors, staff and students as co-producers of knowledge involved in the research pedagogical process. The doctoral graduands that emerge are able to embrace the roles and responsibilities as researchers and knowledge makers. Rather than the PhD being about individualistic learning, the programme attempts to infuse multi- and interdisciplinary notions of responsiveness to knowledge production in community. It concludes with emergent frameworks for doctoral pedagogies –“democratic teaching/learning participation”, “structured scaffolding”, “Ubuntu” and “serendipity”– as useful explanatory shaping influences which underpin and frame the model promoting a contextually relevant and appropriate doctoral research teaching and learning pedagogy.
Exceptional academic achievement in South African higher education.
(2014) Munro, Nicholas.; Vithal, Renuka.
This thesis reports on a study which explored the equity of representation within the phenomenon of exceptional academic achievement in South African higher education. The significance of the thesis rests with its unique position among a prevailing higher education discourse of academic underachievement and high levels of failure. In this way, this study offered a complementary strengths-based perspective within the South African higher education domain. Firstly, the study was located in a historical-contextual framework, and secondly grounded within three conceptual frameworks. These included a critical quantitative stance, a social cognitive framework, and a sociocultural framework. The latter framework specifically incorporated cultural-historical activity theory and was offered as an integrative stance from which the phenomenon of exceptional academic achievement in South African higher education could be most effectively conceptualised. In response to the historical-contextual and conceptual frameworks, the study first sought to identify the profile of exceptional academic achievement in South African undergraduate students. Given the critical nature of the study, the second and third research questions sought to explore those students who did not fit the profile of exceptional academic achievement. In resonance with the historical-contextual and conceptual frameworks and the research questions, a critical dialectical pluralist stance was assumed, and a critical dialectical mixed methodology was employed. This methodology involved two interlinked phases, and these were embedded within a case study of a racially transformed and internationally ranked South African higher education institution. In the first phase of the study, a logistic regression model for exceptional academic achievement in South African higher education was developed. The model was developed from a sample of 20 120 graduates from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who completed undergraduate degrees between the years 2006 and 2010. The model identified that even when controlling for financial aid, matriculation score, and matriculation English symbol, white female students were 16 times more likely to excel when compared to African female students, and seven times more likely to excel when compared to African male students. In the second phase of the study, 18 academically exceptional African female and African male undergraduate students were purposively invited to participate in the study. Their first task involved an interpretation of the logistic regression model, this interpretation being garnered through the students’ participation in three focus group discussions. Of the original 18 students, eight then embarked on an auto-photographical data production process and participated in photo-elicitation interviews with the researcher. Using the theorised activity system within cultural-historical activity theory as a heuristic device, three systems of academic activity were constructed and analysed. The constructions generated evolving and historical activity systems of exceptional academic achievement, and a third institutional system of academic activity. The analyses highlighted the regulatory role of collective emotions in exceptional academic achievement, and in particular, the importance of the resolution of an injustice-based anger and edu-emotional struggle, with a vision for the future and the development of a positive edu-emotional valence. The three activity systems offer a conceptual perspective of exceptional academic achievement in higher education that is persistently unjust, however prospectively hopeful. The current and historical dynamics involved in the academic trajectories of undergraduate African students who excel are offered as a way in which a transformative and socio-political object of exceptional academic achievement could be attained. This object is constituted by an iterative trajectory within a fragile and homologous space between enabling and constraining environments. Importantly, these environments are positioned as having the potential to yield outcomes of both exceptional academic achievement and academic underachievement in higher education.
An exploration of general education and training teachers' democratisation of the science teaching and learning space.
(2016) Jafta, Thomas Daniel.; Alant, Busisiwe Precious.; Vithal, Renuka.
Abstract available in PDF file.
Information systems research methodology curricula.
(2015) McArthur, Brian Walter.; Vithal, Renuka.
The academic discipline of Information Systems (IS) is relatively young and its history is sprinkled with debates about identity and various quests to differentiate itself from related disciplines. Research in IS reflects these diverse quests, with a historically dominant quantitative tradition and an emerging qualitative and critical research paradigm. The formal research preparation of IS students is the phenomenon of interest, viewed from a curriculum perspective. This study explores intended and enacted research methodology (RM) curricula at the postgraduate level in South African public universities. The study is located in the interpretivist paradigm and was conducted in three phases. The first phase, comprising document analysis of formal handbook entries and module outlines, informed phase two, which was an eight week online virtual focus group discussion involving 12 RM lecturers across eight universities. The third phase involved site visits to two purposively selected, contrasting cases of RM curricula and included seminar observations, interviews and material analysis. An analytical framework, based on the curriculum analysis work of Lattuca and Stark (2011) and Posner (2004), informed analysis of the data. Content and thematic analysis of intended RM curricula yielded key themes which informed the analysis of cases. These themes are paradigmatic orientation, pedagogical orientation, linkage of the RM module to the research project and stakeholder orientation. Additional themes, namely, lecturer identity and the disciplinary identity of IS, were identified in the analysis of cases and emerged as key constructs in explaining the diversity of RM curricula in IS. Specific instantiation of a curriculum is conceptualized as a product of the interactions between the relative agency of the identities of the RM lecturer and the disciplinary culture. A model (identities in dialogue) and a matrix (RM structure-agency) have been developed to depict the specific RM curriculum identity produced through the interactions between the components of the constructs RM lecturer identity and discipline identity. The thesis thus build new theory, drawing from the case data to illustrate the explanatory power of the model and matrix. Furthermore, the thesis argues for the influential role of RM curricula in shaping research choices and the resultant influence on the evolving identity of IS as a discipline.
Inside the lives of township high school working learners.
(2009) Mncwabe, Thembekile Christina Nomali.; Vithal, Renuka.
Learning thrives in conducive and supportive environments, and where a culture of learning is cultivated. There are many factors that distract learners from devoting themselves wholeheartedly to learning. This study takes a critical look at such factors, and the involvement of high school learners in the infonnal sector of the economy is identified as the focus for an in-depth interrogation. More specifically, the focus is on the reasons for learners' involvement in infonnal work, the type of work they do, as well as the impact of such involvement on their academic perfonnance. I have chosen to use the case study method in order to understand this phenomenon in one township high school, with a focus on Grade 11 learners as the study participants. Data was collected through a multi-method approach. This entailed a survey questionnaire, letters written by learners, and group and individual interviews. The life histories of learners were developed drawing from the data, and my own autobiography. Five learners, two boys and three girls, were selected to represent the voices of working learners through life histories. The findings of this study reveal that the kind of work activity engaged by learners is gendered, poorly paid, and makes them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, and that poverty, education needs, culture, family structure, and size are the main reasons for children's involvement in the economic activities of the infonnal sector. Noting the magnitude of the problem, the study concludes with some recommendations whilst conceding that there are no quick-fix solutions to challenges of this nature.
The mathematics education of youth at-risk : Nellie and Wiseman.
(2003) Rughubar, Sheena.; Vithal, Renuka.
This study examines the mathematics education of youth at-risk in South Africa. It explores how two learners at the margin understand and perform in mathematics in two radically different educational environments. It also examines what provisions, if any, are incorporated into the mathematics curriculum to accommodate these pupils. One of the research participants attended Thuthukani, a residential school for youth at-risk and the other was based at Sanville Secondary, a mainstream school. The differences between the two contexts were in the scarcity of resources, limited space and class sizes. The qualitative case study, which was the preferred method of choice, was carried out in two stages. Observation of learners at the residential school was stage one. Stage two was the observation of a learner at the margin in a mainstream school. Observations were captured through audio and visual recordings and photographs. Pupils' written reflections and workbooks, combined with the information acquired through interviews, informal discussions and a research diary, supplemented the instruments to produce a rich data for analysis. The analysis suggests that each of the components of this study, namely: the educational environment (context), the mathematics curriculum, the teacher and the learner at the margin influence the teaching and learning in the classroom. The study concludes with the researcher's recommendations on the mathematics education of learners at the margin.
OBE in action.
(2000) James, Angela.; Vithal, Renuka.
Abstract not available.
A paradox of knowing : teachers' knowing about students.
(2008) Amin, Nyna.; Vithal, Renuka.; Samuel, Michael Anthony.
This study is a critical exploration and post-structural explanation of how and what teachers ' know about students. The intention has been to explore teachers' knowing beyond taken-for-granted iterations, beliefs and conceptions of those they teach and to theorise the nature of teachers' knowing. The route to insight involved deploying critical ethnography to produce data over a six-month period. The study site, a secondary school I named Amethyst, is an apartheid-era creation. Since 1990, political change has introduced uncertainties of various sorts and has destabilised the ethos and culture of the school: conflicts between teachers and students, conflicts amongst students' peers, students' participation in activities that are unacceptable and harmful, severe lack of funds to meet the financial needs of the school and lack of human and teaching resources. It is within such an uncertain space that I produced data to interrogate teachers ' knowing about students. At the site, data production was impeded by various confounding factors that eroded trust between the participants and me (the researcher). Traditionally, an ethnographic approach entails three kinds of observation: descriptive observations at the beginning, followed by focused observations narrowed to the concerns of the study and finally, selective observations to consolidate focused observations. For the data production process to continue, the researcher-researched relationship had to be assessed and reconfigured from a critical perspective. In this study the above-mentioned observations have been renamed and reconceptualised from participants' perspectives as: an innocuous phase, an invasive phase and a reciprocity phase. Furthermore, an explication is provided of how research reflexivity shaped the reconceptualisation and the data production processes. Usual forms of data production were abandoned and replaced by a conscious effort to reveal my story to participants eventuating in the form of an exchange of data - my story for their stories. Reciprocal participation enabled data production to be completed and two sets of data were generated: teachers ' stories and students ' stories. Eight teachers ' stories derived from teachers' to teachers' students' teachers' interviews were woven into texts whilst fourteen students' autobiographical accounts comprising lived ex peri ences were re-presented as they narrated them. Juxtapos ing stud ents' accounts with teachers' knowing has yielded three revelations. Firstly, unveil ing how teachers constitute students through knowing them in particul ar ways. Second ly, it reveals how students' constitution as subjects at home and at school a llow them to be known in parti cular ways and thirdl y, revealing the ways students consc iously prevent teachers from knowing about their li ved ex peri ences. The analyses of both sets of stories have dee pened understanding of teachers' knowing, taking it beyond teachers' persona l be lief systems. Plac ing both sets of data und er a criti cal gaze has yie lded three ways of teacher knowing (so li cited, un solic ited and common) and fi ve kind s of teacher knowing (rac ia li sed, gendered, cultu ra l, c lassed, and profess ional). From th e analyses, I have inferred that teachers' knowing about students, when j uxtaposed with and med iated by students' li ved experi ences, is flawed, incomplete, parti al, complex, contradictory, and uni-dimens ional. I put fo rward a th es is predicated on two abstractions from th e anal yses: one, that teachers ' knowing is dangerous because it prope ls teachers towards act ions that can result in d isastrous consequences for students; and two, that not knowing is use ful because it is a more criti ca lly and soc ia lly j ust approach to teaching as it a llows teachers to functi on without succumbing to marginali sing the non-traumati sed and those without chall enges at the persona l level. In effect it tran slates into practices that treat all students equally in an academic settin g, so that in one in stantiati on, students are dri ven to stri ve for academic ac hievement in stead of focusing on emotiona lly debilitating di stractions th at cannot be resolved by teachers' knowing, understanding, and empathy. Not knowing, I argue, offers viable poss ibilities for working with students whose li ves are compromised by low socioeconomic cond iti ons and pro bl ematic family re lati ons. This in vers ion of common-sense instincts about teachers ' knowing and not knowing IS theorised by deploying a topologica l metaphor, the Mii bius strip, to demonstrate that teachers' knowing and not knowing about stud ents are not polar oppos ites on a continuum, but are paradoxically, cohabitants of a common space, refl ections of each other, res iding in each other. Additiona lly, I charge that teachin g and caring, mediated by knowing, form the foundation of teachers' work, and argue that at Amethyst, teaching and caring cannot be activated simul ta neo us ly within an indi vidual teacher. Kcy words: critica l ethnography, teachers' knowing, paradox of knowin g.
The physiotherapy undergraduate curriculum : a case for professional development.
(2006) Ramklass, Serela Samita.; Vithal, Renuka.; Kathard, Harsha Mothilall.
This study focuses on physiotherapy professional development and professional education and the multitude of theoretical, practical and political forces that shape and influence physiotherapy education. It does so by addressing the questions: how is an undergraduate physiotherapy curriculum within a historically disadvantaged university responding to post apartheid societal transformation in South Africa; and why is the curriculum responding in the way that it is within the current social, economic, political, cultural and historical context of South Africa. The study is theoretically and methodically located within critical, feminist and post-modern framings that disturb and disrupt the dominant medical model of health sciences practice. Employing narrative inquiry as the selected methodology, data was produced through multiple methods to obtain multiple perspectives and orientations. This multi-sectoral data production approach involving student physiotherapists, physiotherapy academics and practicing physiotherapists included in-depth focus group interviews, individual interviews, life-history biographies and open-ended questionnaires. The data is analysed firstly separately for each group of research participants - physiotherapy students, practitioners and academics, and then followed by a cross-sector analysis. The analysis illustrated current disciplinary trends and shortcomings of the physiotherapy undergraduate curriculum, whilst highlighting that which is considered valuable and progressive in physiotherapy and health care. The dominant themes that emerged included issues relating to physiotherapy theory and practice, and issues that influenced the construction of relationships in the curriculum. The main thesis presented is that for physiotherapy in the South African context, the notion of caring is identified as the link between transformation and professional development. The model proposed is: A Caring-Transformative Physiotherapy Practitioner Model for physiotherapy professional development advancing a view of what it could mean to be an agent of transformation in South Africa within the health care system. This model is located within multiple framings of caring that re-casts the physiotherapy professional previously located primarily within a medical model ideology, into a practitioner with a broadened view of practice and professional accountability within a critical-feminist framing.
Quality practices in teaching by academics in higher education.
(2018) Dongwe, Cynthia Khethiwe.; O'Brien, Frances Yvonne.; Vithal, Renuka.
The study focuses on quality in teaching in higher education institutions (HEIs) seeking to understand academics’ quality practices in teaching, the influences on those practices and academics’ conceptualisations of quality. Selected national and institutional policies concentrating on quality in teaching are presented to unpack the policy environment in which academics function. From the literature and the policy documents, Categories of Quality Practices in Teaching are established to assist in data analysis. A qualitative case study methodology within an interpretive paradigm is adopted. Data are generated through interviews with nine academics and documents provided by those academics. The practices are categorised and then compared with institutional policy. The academics’ conceptions of quality are analysed using five conceptions of quality identified in the literature. Further thematic analysis is performed to analyse the views of academics regarding the practices. Findings reveal that academics prioritise those practices closest to them which relate to the classroom and to students followed by practices which relate to the institution and to peers. The reported practices are mainly in accordance with institutional policy with a few variations. Academics conceptualise quality as transformation, exceptional, value for money and as fitness for purpose. According to them, transformation means changing and impacting the student through teaching. The study suggests that there could be emerging conceptions of quality as both self-efficacy and self-identity. The study also establishes that academics construe various factors as having the potential to enhance or impede quality in teaching. Lastly, results indicate that many academics are driven by a desire to comply, rather than iii being self-driven. Using neo-institutional theory concepts, the study concludes that quality practices in teaching are mainly due to multi-level isomorphic pressures, resulting in minimal improvements in the quality of teaching. The study advances a Quality Practices in Teaching Model, for better understanding of academics’ quality practices in teaching undergraduate students. It is recommended that quality practices in teaching should result mainly from intrinsic motivation of academics and be based on willingness to improve quality in teaching. There should be ways of dealing with de-coupling between academics and the institutional structures driving the quality initiatives.
Racism and the science classroom : towards a critical biology education.
(2005) Patel, Farida.; Vithal, Renuka.
This study explores how students experience oppression and subordination in and through biology education. The exploration is guided by the following questions: how is racism/discrimination played out in my biology classroom; in what way/s are the classroom practices of both the students and the teacher racist/discriminatory; and what reinforces such racist/discriminatory practices and why. Since the critical perspective allows for oppressions, subordinations and discriminatory practice to be named and challenged this then became the perspective within which the study was located. The methodology, guided by the critical perspective, and used to generate the data in this search is therefore a critical ethnography within which a critical self ethnography is also employed. Through foregrounding the oppression of race and racism, this methodology made it possible to generate data on the various oppressions and subordinations that are perpetuated in and through biology education. The data was generated from biology lessons on cell division, human reproduction, genetics and biological determinism in a Grade 11 class. This class had in it 34 fe/male students from three different race groups viz. Indian, Black and Coloured. Ten students who volunteered to be interviewed also contributed to the data generated in this study. At a first level of analysis, the data generated from the lessons and the interviews were written up and presented as factionalised stories. This was then used to provide, at a second level a descriptive cross-case analysis grounded in the data of the stories. This cross-case analysis generated categories of oppression, subordination and discriminatory practice that included race and colour; gender and patriarchy; bodies and sexuality; class, poverty and sexually transmitted diseases; institutional power and hierarchy; religion; and language. These categories of oppression and subordination, although described separately, are mutually inclusive categories. From this description it became possible to name and theorise, at a third level of analysis, oppressions and subordinations within biology education. The theorisations deliberated on issues of race, class, gender, language and power. The naming and challenging of existing oppressions, subordinations and discriminatory practice required that a traditional contemporary biology education be replaced by a critical biology education. This study, in engaging a critical biology education, shows how biology may be taught differently when the agenda is social transformation in efforts towards social justice. Whilst it is accepted that social justice in all forms may never be attained, this study shows possibilities for how that contained within current Life Sciences policy for human rights and social justice, could be realised.
Tracking sporting excellence in a transforming society.
(2012) Rajput, Daxita Ishwarlal.; Sookrajh, Reshma.; Vithal, Renuka.
There was a time in South Africa’s history when the majority of its citizens was deprived of their basic human rights and experienced extreme racial divisiveness. Today the South African society has transformed from a highly stratified society to one that is united in its diversity. It is against this context that this study explores how learners who come from diverse racial, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds are achieving sporting excellence in this transforming society. This study reviewed data generated from three sets of participants: learners, provincial coaches and significant others. In-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen learners from the KwaZulu-Natal provincial sports teams, who were from differing and diverse backgrounds and represented the most common codes of sport, played in KwaZulu-Natal schools. Their stories were told in the form of narratives as they journeyed towards sporting excellence, providing detailed background of their life circumstances and experiences. Analysis of these narratives yielded five themes: self and identity; social context; schooling and the curriculum; team spirit and talent search; and race, class and culture, which emphasised the psychological and sociological perspectives of sporting excellence. Further, using the data generated from the provincial coaches and the significant others, the notions of the resolute self, reliance on people, the white school magnets and migration, unwavering nation building and social and racial diversity emerged from the themes. In tracking sporting excellence the focus is shifted to the learners’ journey within a transforming society, to theorise the social spaces which have been navigated by them to ensure sporting prowess. From the analysis of the data I put forward a thesis predicted on three concepts; the spatial movements, the spatial displacements and the spatial upheavals which the learners had to manage and navigate by travelling long distances, overcoming obstacles and making connections respectively. I argue that in a transforming society it is the filtration process of sporting excellence that has only benefitted a select few learners and has uniquely contributed to the achievement of sporting excellence. Achieving sporting excellence in a transforming society
Trends in participation, performance and career choice, among girls who are successful in mathematics.
(2002) Essack, Regina Miriam.; Vithal, Renuka.
Abstract available in the PDF.
What mathematics learners say about the new South African curriculum reform.
(2005) Vithal, Renuka.; Gopal, Nirmala Devi.
In this article we report on what Grade 8 learners say about the new curriculum reforms in South Africa – Outcomes-based Education (OBE) and Curriculum 2005 (C2005) – that were introduced into their mathematics classrooms. The article begins by addressing what is argued to be a gap in reform research in mathematics education. It draws primarily on focus group interviews conducted with learners after having observed a series of consecutive lessons in three different previously racially segregated schools in the Durban region from the international study on mathematics learners' perspectives. The analysis is organised in five broad themes that emerged from the data, some of which resonate with the design features of the curriculum reforms: a strong focus on group work; the attempt to forge relations between mathematics and context; changes in the use of learning-teaching materials such as worksheets; issues of assessment; and learners' take-up of the discourse of the new curriculum approach. Learners' views seem to be linked to their teachers' explicit (non)engagement with the new curriculum, and they appear to be aware of the tensions and trade-offs for themselves in the enactment of the new curriculum.
Women principals in KwaZulu-Natal : reshaping the landscape of educational leadership.
(2005) Pillay, Asha Rani.; Vithal, Renuka.
The concept and approaches of leadership focused mainly on the male experience and interpretation of what constitutes leadership. Studies on leadership in the main have ignored the perspective of women and this then impacts on the description of leadership in its entirety as a concept of 'one size fits all'. This study investigates the leadership perspective as enacted and experienced by women principals in secondary schools. The study combined both the quantitative and qualitative paradigm. A survey questionnaire was used to ascertain the leadership styles of women principals throughout the province of KwaZulu Natal. Semistructured interviews conducted with four women principals from the four ex- education departments were used to gain a deeper insight of the experiences of female principals as leaders. The study concludes that the features of the female principals leadership approach is participatory and transformational, where transformational refers to shared influence and co-operation, participative decision-making, teamwork and the concept of power for the empowerment of members of the organization. The importance of this finding is that it reflects that women as leaders are inclined to the transformational approach because it favours their feminine values of nurturing and caring. In the context of change and transformation in South African schools, it would be in the best interests of school principals, regardless of gender, to adopt a more transformational approach so as to empower individuals, develop an environment of trust and capitalize on unique and diverse abilities, skills and talent in order to change schools from a bureaucratic, top-down organization to a more democratic one. Given the critical role principals play in transforming schools, this finding suggests that appointing more women to leadership positions would have a beneficial effect.