SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
 número86How calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity and latent interests in scholarly inquiry índice de autoresíndice de assuntospesquisa de artigos
Home Pagelista alfabética de periódicos  

Serviços Personalizados

Artigo

Indicadores

Links relacionados

  • Em processo de indexaçãoCitado por Google
  • Em processo de indexaçãoSimilares em Google

Compartilhar


Journal of Education (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

versão On-line ISSN 2520-9868
versão impressa ISSN 0259-479X

Journal of Education  no.86 Durban  2022

 

EDITORIAL

 

Editorial

 

 

Labby Ramrathan

School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za

 

 

I write this editorial for the 86th issue of Journal of Education as the new editor of the journal. Having spent a day with the managing editorial team of the journal, developing a strategic plan for the next five years, I am pleased with this edition-largely because it resonates with the intent of that plan, going forward. The papers in this general issue speak to issues of inclusivity, regionality, deep methodological insights, and conceptually grounded articles, which are amongst the key elements that this journal engender. In the edition, there are articles that focus on teacher education, on school education, on higher education, and on regional and global issues that have relevance to South African education.

With the firm footing of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) globally, who defines what this means and what constitute the elements of 4IR are the focus of Nazir Carrim's article on 4IR in South Africa. Using Foucault's notion of enunciative modalities, the author shows how positions of authority delimit who defines what 4IR is and who brings it into visibility- especially in the educational context.

Deidre Geduld and Heloise Sathorar's paper on transforming teaching education calls for critical reflections on teacher education to engender innovative approaches. These approaches include community mapping as pedagogical tool for student teachers to deepen their understanding of the contextual realities that influence educational experiences, especially amongst poor and working-class South Africans.

In their article on representing teachers' voices, Wedsha Appadoo-Ramsamy, Michael Anthony Samuel, and Aruna Ankiah-Gangadeen present innovative methodological processes that allow teachers' voices to be heard within a compliance context of teaching and learning. Using ethnodrama, the teachers reveal multiple forms of agencies, which serve different interests that influence dialogue within specific spaces.

Keeping with the theme of teacher education, Robyn Raina Kahn and Eunice Nyamupangedengu's article on investigating opportunities for integrating methodology when teaching a life science topic advance the notion that integrating pedagogical methods of teaching a particular content area is possible-thereby extending on the form of pedagogical content knowledge that teachers need to develop as reflexive student teachers.

Inclusive education from a leadership perspective is one of the many challenges that schools face in developing a culture of inclusivity. Seipati Patricia Ramango and Suraiya R.

Naicker's article proposes a framework for school leadership to facilitate an inclusive education culture in their schools.

Covid-19 has been very revealing within educational institutions, especially in unequal societies. The article on Covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in Zimbabwean universities is yet another example of the extent to which inequalities in societies have impacted on universities. Although Wonder Muchabaiwa and Reniko Gondo's article focuses on what has happened in Zimbabwe, their findings are congruent with the substantive literature in the South African context.

There have been ongoing attempts to address inequalities in the South African context, especially within the focus of access and success in higher education studies. Temwa Moyo, Sioux McKenna, and Clever Ndebele's article on how the Teaching Development Grant had been used shows how the institutions rely on and use development grants to support students. The authors claim that these institutions have developed untheorised assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy and have used common-sense assumptions about teaching and learning, which reinforce the status quo related to differentiated throughput and success rates amongst the student populations.

Although globally, the research on education of migrant children is extensive, in the South African context the literature is sparse. Sarah Blessed-Sayah, Dominic Griffiths, and Ian Moll's article on a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children is one of the few articles on the education of migrant children in the South African context. Using a case study of a South African school, these authors illuminate the challenges faced by migrant learners, especially those who are undocumented.

Noting the frequent disruption of schooling in South African due to several reasons including conflict situations, we can learn a lot from education in countries that have ongoing conflicts. Michael Ntui Agbor, Mercy Aki Etta, and Hannah Mbua Etonde present a snapshot of the effects of ongoing conflicts on teaching and learning in Cameroon. The authors illuminate the challenges of schooling in such situations-especially those of teaching and learning being ineffective, and which may result in further damaging effects. Their article provides us with an opportunity to explore in greater depth, the effects of ongoing disruptions to school education-be they from school closures due to health issues (e.g., Covid-19), protest actions, or other political events.

This issue closes with Sherran Clarence's review of the book, Understanding Higher Education: Alternative Perspectives (2021), which illuminates the need for a theorised understanding of teaching and learning in higher education beyond common-sense understandings that have characterised interventions from access through to success in higher education studies thus far. She highlights, in her review, the advocacy by Chrissie Boughey and Sioux McKenna in their book, for a critical social theory to deepen our understanding of the needs of students and academics in promoting a socially just opportunity for academic success.

Creative Commons License Todo o conteúdo deste periódico, exceto onde está identificado, está licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons