School of Education

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The contours of disadvantage and academic progress : analysis of perceptions of students from disadvantaged schools at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
(2013) Mpofu, Bhekimpilo.; Mbali, Valerie Charlotte.
The overall purpose of this study was to analyse the perceptions and experiences of students from disadvantaged schools regarding their academic progress at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The study focused on the students’ material and social circumstances, their learning environment while at University, their connections to their home community, and their career aspirations. It set to answer three key research questions, namely: (1) what are the contours of disadvantage that can be discovered through investigating samples of students from disadvantaged schools at UKZN? (2) How do the ‘contours’ seem to co-occur with factors relating to academic progress? (3) What are the perceptions of students from disadvantaged schools at UKZN about their pre-university experience and the learning environment at university? The notion of disadvantage was defined using the Department of Education (DoE)’s classification of schools into the quintile system which is based on measurements of the poverty of the catchment community. Thus, this study shows that the notion of disadvantaged students in higher education can be investigated through class-based, rather than merely racially-based definitions. This study was conducted within a three-fold conceptual framework based on sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA), social capital theory and social justice ideology. The SLA approach teaches us that livelihoods can only be understood and captured in particular contexts. This research project therefore aimed to gain a clearer understanding of such a context, in this case, the campus environment. Through the phenomenological approach of the openended questions in the interviews, this thesis taps into the perceptions of students themselves about their environment and how they cope. Social capital theory postulates five spheres: the academic, the social, the economic, the support, and the democratic. These were probed in both a survey of a sample of disadvantaged students, and by interviewing eight students. With regard to academic progress, the measurements used were the matric aggregate, the grade point average for salient years and programmes, and the time it took for students to graduate or dropout. Comparisons are made between the norm of students, the disadvantaged (those from low quintile schools), and those in the sample. The purpose of utilizing such measurements is to contribute to the social justice discourse about university education based on Taylor’s notion of Fair Equality of Opportunity (FEO), where disadvantaged students’ abilities and aspirations can best be developed and exercised, leading to the attainment of self-realization. Until disadvantaged students show academic progress that fits the norm, the contours of their disadvantage need to be continually investigated; it is hoped that the findings of this thesis will contribute to further research and concrete proposals which can be implemented to improve conditions so that students who are already disadvantaged as a result of their schooling are not further disadvantaged while at University .
Does limited English proficiency impact on schooling success for African learners? : a case study of a secondary school in Durban.
(1998) D'amant, Antoinette.; Muthukrishna, Anbanithi.
With the move towards multicultural education in South Africa, previously "whites only" schools now face the challenge of educating learners from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This study examined the extent to which limited English language proficiency impacts on schooling success for learners with Limited English Proficiency (L.E.P.). The study explored how these L.E.P. learners experienced the curriculum at a particular secondary school in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and the extent to which this school responded to the challenges of diversity in its learner population. The study used a qualitative research methodology. The sample comprised 24 learners from Grade 10. The data collection techniques used were the focussed group interview, and document analysis of school documents. The findings indicate that the language issue is complex and cannot be explored as an isolated variable. Various other mediating factors interact to impact on schooling success for learners with limited English language proficiency. (Some of these factors are race; class; culture; school ethos; norms and value; the school curriculum; and the socio-economic background of learners). The results also reveal that, although the school policy and ethos at the school reflects a commitment to racial integration and a positive response to cultural diversity among its learners, assimilationist practices still prevail. Attempts to integrate elements of 'other' cultural wordviews have been largely token representation of the diverse cultures. The curriculum continues to reflect the dominant culture with little meaningful affirmation of learners' diverse cultural and linguistic roots. Limited English Proficiency (L.E.P.) learners often experience alienation and marginalisation from the curriculum and the culture of the school. Simply assimilating Limited English Proficiency learners into the curriculum as it is does not guarantee the equalisation of educational opportunities for all learners. Much restructuring of the curriculum is necessary to fulfil the goals of multicultural education.
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.
A parent behind bars : investigating the scholastic experiences of learners whose parents are incarcerated.
(2013) Moodley, Nolene.; Muribwathoho, Henry Nkhanedzeni.
Abstract available in PDF file.
The relationship between academic performance, school culture and school leadership in historically disadvantaged African township secondary schools : implications for leadership.
(2005) Ngcobo, Thandi Moira.; Harley, Keneth Lee.; Thurlow, Michael.
The present government places tremendous faith in academic performance as a crucial tool for transforming the country's society. However, academic performance in the majority of historically disadvantaged schools is poor. What this means is that these schools are hardly in a position to contribute to this hoped for transformation. This is despite the numerous policies generated by the government in an effort to improve the performance. Underpinning this study was a view that this is because the policies do not address issues that are foundational for academic performance. One such issue, as indicated by widespread findings, is school culture, and associated leadership. In response to this view, an examination was in this study conducted on the relationship between academic performance, school culture and school leadership in two historically disadvantaged African township secondary schools (HDATSS). The purpose was to develop better understanding of school cultures that have the potential of enabling good academic performance in HDATSS, and, in the process, develop better understanding of leadership associated with the formation of such school cultures. The examination was conducted by means of ethnography. The advantage of ethnography for this study was that the methodology results in micro/thick descriptions more likely to inform practice than is the case with thin descriptions provided by other methodologies. Findings were that school cultures that are most likely to enable good academic performance in HDATSS are those that are predominantly communal in nature, but also incorporate societal features. Of particular advantage about communality for the schools' academic performance are common, consensual understandings in relation to the schools' academic goals and behavioural norms. Of advantage about the societal incorporation, on the other hand, is societal capacity to compensate for communality's failure to negotiate common understandings in organizations that are as complex, ever-changing and multifaceted as are HDATSS. It was further found that for such school cultures to be enabling for HDATSS they need to creatively supplement historical deprivations and reflect the cultural backgrounds of the schools' populations. A style of leadership that was found to be associated with the formation of such school cultures is that which emerges organically and is therefore diffused, serving and diversified.
Some strategies used by isiZulu-speaking learners when answering TIMSS 2003 science questions.
(2006) Zuma, Sandile Cleopas.; Dempster, Edith Roslyn.
The purpose of this study was to describe the performance of the South African Grade 8 learners in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003 science test, to explore the translatability of TIMSS 2003 science items into isiZulu without significant loss of meaning, and to explore the strategies used by isiZulu-speaking learners when answering questions in the TIMSS 2003 test. Thirty six isiZulu-speaking learners were tested using written test questions taken from the science test in the TIMSS 2003. The degree to which a sample of 36 learners represented their understanding of the questions in a written test compared to the level of understanding that could be elicited by an interview is presented in this study. The findings of this study are presented, interpreted and discussed using Pollitt & Ahmed's (2001) model of question answering process as well as other relevant literature. The key findings of this study are as follows : • the South African Grade 8 learners performed very poorly on TIMSS 2003 science test, • close translation of TIMSS 2003 science items into isiZulu is possible if conducted with care by expert teachers, • the language of the test had some effect on isiZulu-speaking learners' performance on TIMSS 2003 science test, • the strategies used by isiZulu-speaking learners when answering science questions included: • translating the question into isiZulu before trying to answer it, • choosing an answer containing a word/term common in the question stem and in the options, • choosing the answer containing a familiar/unfamiliar word in the options, •guessing , •looking at patterns of previous choices, •'picture memory', and •'general knowledge'. When Pollitt & Ahmed's (2001) model of question answering is applied to isiZuluspeaking learners, two 'new' phases are introduced. The findings of this study suggest that language factors are embedded within other factors, importantly, the appropriate level of cognitive proficiency to enable correct answering of science questions. The findings of this study further suggest the need for development of cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) in both English and isiZulu languages, or in one of them.
Students' construction of academic success in higher education.
(2014) Govender, Subbalakshmi Deenadeyalan.; Ramrathan, Prevanand.
This study explored how students construct and perform academic success in Higher Education (HE) in the context of consistently high failure and dropout rates. The South African Department of Education (DoE) reported that of the 120 000 students who enrolled in higher education in 2000, 50% dropped out in in either the first or second year of study and only 22% graduated within the specified three year duration for a generic Bachelors degree. Research literature used in this study has indicated that failure and drop out in HE have been the subject of problem based research in South Africa with much more literature exploring the HE dropout rate and its contributory factors. The main purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of academic success from the successful student’s point of view and how comparatively few students constructed, produced and performed academic success within a Humanities undergraduate programme at a South African university. The interest of this investigation lies in the area of the broader academic and social discourses that they, as successful students, inhabited and through which they produced and performed their success in undergraduate studies. International research literature used in this study indicated that although retention has been the subject of research for over seventy years in the US for instance, drop out rates in HE which are comparable to South Africa have not improved .Originating in the US, The Tinto Student Integration Model explaining student success proved to be useful as a starting point to understand both the way academic success was constructed by the participants in this study and why they constructed it in this way in relation to their social and academic integration at university in the context of their personal backgrounds. The model was supplemented by educational, psychological and sociological theories of epistemological access, motivation, agency and student engagement. This layered set of lenses was further deepened by seeing academic success in the context of Ubuntu, a particularly African philosophy of humanism which completed the conceptual framework of this study. This research study was located within an interpretative case study design. Four out of twelve successful students were purposively selected for this study. All participants had studied either for a three year BA or B Social Science in either the Drama and Performance Studies or English Studies programmes at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. A dual method approach was used for the generation of data, including semi-structured interviews with each participant, which took place over a period of twelve months. Data gathering also included written autobiographies and research journal notes. The process of data gathering and interpretation went through various stages to produce a story portrait of each participant which encompassed research journal notes. In using an interpretative representation technique by designing the research instrument (semi-structured interview) around the themes of one of the novels studied by the English Studies students, I was able to access a worthwhile research tool for validation and it added another layer of meaning making in understanding academic success. The key findings which emerged out of a relational analysis of the narratives were based on a continuous dynamic movement of the successful student between and amongst the different areas of participation and integration at university in order to construct and perform academic success. One salient finding included the fact that while construction of academic success was designed on many levels with various points of entry and while performance was enacted in a multitude of environments (interpersonal, intrapersonal and institutional), neither construction nor performance could be concluded without motivation, self-regulation and agency which presented as elements of personal background of the participants in this study. I chose to represent the subtleties, multitude of dimensions and the breadth and depth of the experience of the academically successful undergraduate student in the summative illustration of the metaphor of the lemniscate. It captured the backward forward momentum and sometimes hurtling dynamic experienced by the participants of this study in their construction, production and performance of academic success in their undergraduate studies and assists one to navigate this journey the successful students revealed. It also assists in understanding how the participants circumvented dropping out of H E. The topography of the Resilience Capital Lemniscates Model of Academic Success typified not only momentum, direction and environment but also encompassed the emotional and psychological aspects which accompanied any movement through the lemniscates of academic success.

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