Illuminating the Persistence and Departures of Previously Disadvantaged Students at an Engineering Faculty [Scholarly Article - SAJHE, December 2021]

Title:

Illuminating the Persistence and Departures of Previously Disadvantaged Students at an Engineering Faculty

 

Author:

M.C. Bladergroen, University of the Western Cape

 

Published:

South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE), Volume 35, Number 6 (4 December 2021)

https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/4317

 

Abstract:

The low success rate of many students from previously disadvantaged groups endangers the face and fate of many tertiary institutions, hence an Engineering Faculty’s explorations into the causes of these students’ persistence at and departures from the Faculty. By using the theory of acculturation and agency the research group explored students’ opportunity of freedom towards self-actualisation. Three sample groups were used and the noteworthy findings of the persistence groups’ questionnaire and the focus group findings were explored. The data suggest that the previously disadvantaged students experience a general sense of isolation and physical segregation. The study reports that Faculty has to make concerted efforts to acknowledge and appreciate the somatic and intellectual skills of PDAS, and utilize these towards academic support if they plan on increasing the retention rates. If not the students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds are systemically coerced to spend valuable academic time circumventing unpleasant experiences, change Faculty or drop out of the system.

 

Divergence of perspectives on women and higher education leadership? In conversation with men in leadership [Scholarly Article - SAJHE, October 2021]

Title:

Divergence of perspectives on women and higher education leadership? In conversation with men in leadership

 

Author:

A.L. Moodly

Rhodes University, South Africa

 

Published:

South African Journal of Higher Education, Volume 35, Number 5, 31 October 2021

https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/3866

 

Abstract:

Literature on the challenges and marginalisation of women in higher education and leadership has focused mostly on the voices of women in understanding their experiences. The structural and cultural milieu of the higher education landscape has continuously been put forward as part of a complexity of contributing factors to the challenges. In exploring literature, the author found little that brings men’s voices to the discourse. Seeking the voices of men in leadership, was with the understanding that in occupying positions of power and influence, they are strategically positioned and have agency in transforming the structural and cultural milieu. The article focuses on challenges experienced by women on a trajectory to the highest levels of higher education leadership, and engages with men’s perspectives on the higher education structural and cultural milieu. The focus is on areas that women have highlighted as barriers within this milieu. The article engages with the conversations with men, including vice chancellors, undertaken as part of a research project, to explore whether there is a common view and understanding of the higher education environment and women’s experiences and challenges in this context. Further, whether men in leadership exercise their agency in influencing and challenging the status quo. The article concludes that though there may not necessarily be a divergence in perspectives regarding the milieu and women’s experiences therein, this may only be at an empirical/observed level. The deeper, underlying structures and mechanisms that retain the status quo have neither been recognised nor engaged. There is also the danger of complacency and lack of exercising agency in disrupting the status quo, which may contribute to the lack of change. The findings also foreground a wrestling with a myriad of challenges as experienced within the higher education sector, contributing to the lack of prioritising a focus on women towards leadership.

 

Dialogue and subject positioning in pedagogical practice: the academic literacies classroom in a Ghanaian University [Teaching in Higher Education, June 201]

Title:

Dialogue and subject positioning in pedagogical practice: the academic literacies classroom in a Ghanaian University 

 

Authors:

Alimsiwen Elijah Ayaawan 

Language Centre, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana

&

Gordon S. K. Adika

Language Centre, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana 

 

Published:

Teaching in Higher Education, 20 June 2021

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2021.1943653

 

Abstract:

The importance of academic literacy acquisition through enculturation in higher education is self-evident. Important within the processes of enculturation is how interactants are positioned. This study examines how interactants within the writing classroom of a higher education institution in Ghana are positioned through dialogue. Data for this study are recordings of lectures of a mandatory undergraduate programme. The study indicates that though there are attempts to position the student as an active and equal participant within the writing classroom, the instructor still emerges as dominant participant. It also establishes that the pedagogical practices of the classroom adopt strategies such as peer deliberations, and epistemic discovery to help foster personal agency development in the student. It concludes that the academic literacies model has not informed what goes on in the literacies classroom of the institution. The study recommends that the enculturation processes will have to adopt a more critical approach.