'Joining the academic life': South African students who succeed at university despite not meeting standard entry requirements
- Vincent, Louise, Idahosa, Grace E
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141745 , vital:38001 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC159177
- Description: At present the Swedish points system is one of the main determinants of an applicant either being granted or refused entry into many South African higher education institutions (HEIs). Using a grounded theory approach, this article interprets the experiences of participants whose school performance and therefore university 'entry points' were lower than the expected norm. Despite not meeting standard university entry requirements, these students succeeded at university, completing their degrees in the minimum time available and going on to higher degrees. The journey of these participants - from low entry points to academic success - suggests that points based on school performance are not necessarily the best way of identifying students' potential to succeed in the contemporary South African educational context. If their entry points were not a good indication of their ability to thrive at university, the article asks, what is it about these participants that accounts for their success? And what implications does this have for South African practice, not only with regard to admissions policies but also in relation to the responsibilities of HEIs to students once they are admitted?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141745 , vital:38001 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC159177
- Description: At present the Swedish points system is one of the main determinants of an applicant either being granted or refused entry into many South African higher education institutions (HEIs). Using a grounded theory approach, this article interprets the experiences of participants whose school performance and therefore university 'entry points' were lower than the expected norm. Despite not meeting standard university entry requirements, these students succeeded at university, completing their degrees in the minimum time available and going on to higher degrees. The journey of these participants - from low entry points to academic success - suggests that points based on school performance are not necessarily the best way of identifying students' potential to succeed in the contemporary South African educational context. If their entry points were not a good indication of their ability to thrive at university, the article asks, what is it about these participants that accounts for their success? And what implications does this have for South African practice, not only with regard to admissions policies but also in relation to the responsibilities of HEIs to students once they are admitted?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Embracing racial reasoning: the DASO poster controversy and ‘Race’politics in contemporary South Africa
- Vincent, Louise, Howell, Simon
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141933 , vital:38017 , DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2014.877651
- Description: We examine the response to a poster published by South Africa's official opposition's youth wing, the Democratic Alliance's Student Organisation (DASO) as part of a political campaign in 2012. From commentary that the poster's publication generated, we excavate some of the key discursive strategies used by commentators to negotiate the gulf between the constitutional value of non-racialism and the lived contemporary reality of race in South Africa. Many commentators situated themselves either as ‘colour-blind’, or reformulated ‘race’ as ‘class’ or ‘culture’. In making visible some of these strategies, and the attendant (re-)racialised narratives upon which they rely, we highlight the paradoxes that inhere in the idea of ‘non-racialism’ – a notion that implies that race must simultaneously be thought and ‘un-thought’. Racial categories contrived by apartheid have been somewhat rearranged and rearticulated, but nevertheless continue to operate today as organising principles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141933 , vital:38017 , DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2014.877651
- Description: We examine the response to a poster published by South Africa's official opposition's youth wing, the Democratic Alliance's Student Organisation (DASO) as part of a political campaign in 2012. From commentary that the poster's publication generated, we excavate some of the key discursive strategies used by commentators to negotiate the gulf between the constitutional value of non-racialism and the lived contemporary reality of race in South Africa. Many commentators situated themselves either as ‘colour-blind’, or reformulated ‘race’ as ‘class’ or ‘culture’. In making visible some of these strategies, and the attendant (re-)racialised narratives upon which they rely, we highlight the paradoxes that inhere in the idea of ‘non-racialism’ – a notion that implies that race must simultaneously be thought and ‘un-thought’. Racial categories contrived by apartheid have been somewhat rearranged and rearticulated, but nevertheless continue to operate today as organising principles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Losing, using, refusing, cruising: first-generation South African women academics narrate the complexity of marginality
- Idahosa, Grace E, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141820 , vital:38007 , DOI: 10.1080/10130950.2014.874766
- Description: In this article we ask how senior academic women in South Africa narrate their experience of being ‘outside in’ the teaching machine. Wide research literature documents the gross underrepresentation of women in senior positions in the academy. It has been argued that intertwined sexist, patriarchal and phallocentric knowledges and practices in academic institutions produce various forms of discrimination, inequality, oppression and marginalisation. Academic women report feeling invisible and retreating to the margins so as to avoid victimisation and discrimination. Others have pointed to the tension between the ‘tenure clock’ and ‘biological clock’ as a source of anxiety. However, experiences of academic women are not identical. In the context of studies showing the importance of existing personal and social resources, prior experience and having mentors and role models in the negotiation of inequality and discrimination, we document the narratives of women academics who are the first in their families to graduate with a university degree.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141820 , vital:38007 , DOI: 10.1080/10130950.2014.874766
- Description: In this article we ask how senior academic women in South Africa narrate their experience of being ‘outside in’ the teaching machine. Wide research literature documents the gross underrepresentation of women in senior positions in the academy. It has been argued that intertwined sexist, patriarchal and phallocentric knowledges and practices in academic institutions produce various forms of discrimination, inequality, oppression and marginalisation. Academic women report feeling invisible and retreating to the margins so as to avoid victimisation and discrimination. Others have pointed to the tension between the ‘tenure clock’ and ‘biological clock’ as a source of anxiety. However, experiences of academic women are not identical. In the context of studies showing the importance of existing personal and social resources, prior experience and having mentors and role models in the negotiation of inequality and discrimination, we document the narratives of women academics who are the first in their families to graduate with a university degree.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Xenophobia, sovereign power and the limits of citizenship:
- Idahosa, Grace E, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141970 , vital:38020 , DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2014.914637
- Description: African foreigners in South Africa have frequently been the targets of violent and discriminatory practices, which occur in the enabling context of negative discourses concerning African foreigners that circulate in various spheres of public life. This study is interested in one particular field of interaction between African foreigners and the South African state, namely the public health sector. Discriminatory and, sometimes, violent practices towards African foreigners on the part of South African citizens are widely documented. Less discussed are the ways in which these practices of violence and discrimination are in fact state practices. We show this with reference to the treatment of African foreigners in the public health sector. We refer to this prejudicial treatment as health-care Xenophobia which is made possible by a wider set of discourses related to citizenship and the rights accruing to citizens which suggest the ‘non-rights’ of the non-citizen.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141970 , vital:38020 , DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2014.914637
- Description: African foreigners in South Africa have frequently been the targets of violent and discriminatory practices, which occur in the enabling context of negative discourses concerning African foreigners that circulate in various spheres of public life. This study is interested in one particular field of interaction between African foreigners and the South African state, namely the public health sector. Discriminatory and, sometimes, violent practices towards African foreigners on the part of South African citizens are widely documented. Less discussed are the ways in which these practices of violence and discrimination are in fact state practices. We show this with reference to the treatment of African foreigners in the public health sector. We refer to this prejudicial treatment as health-care Xenophobia which is made possible by a wider set of discourses related to citizenship and the rights accruing to citizens which suggest the ‘non-rights’ of the non-citizen.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
‘Licking the snake’: the i'khothane and contemporary township youth identities in South Africa
- Howell, Simon, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Howell, Simon , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141645 , vital:37993 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2014.917883
- Description: The i’khothane youth subculture is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged in some of South Africa’s townships. Characterised by the rampant consumption of certain goods, such as expensive clothing, the subculture is unique in that it is also defined by the destruction of these goods in performances known as ‘battles’. Demonised by the media, we set out to explore what makes these practices meaningful to the participants themselves. On the basis of in-depth interviews conducted with the members of one group, we bring to the academic literature a scarcely analysed phenomenon that is nevertheless an acknowledged element of popular youth culture in contemporary South Africa. We attempt to place the practice of i’khothane within the context of the patterns of conspicuous consumption that have emerged in (a highly unequal) post-apartheid South Africa. While the practice of burning expensive consumer goods in public may seem alien, especially in contrast to the impoverished surroundings within which the i’khothane live, there are discernable and understandable reasons why the subculture has gained both popularity and notoriety. We show how the practice of i’khothane is a potent means of articulating youth identity in settings seemingly left behind by the ‘new’ South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Howell, Simon , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141645 , vital:37993 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2014.917883
- Description: The i’khothane youth subculture is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged in some of South Africa’s townships. Characterised by the rampant consumption of certain goods, such as expensive clothing, the subculture is unique in that it is also defined by the destruction of these goods in performances known as ‘battles’. Demonised by the media, we set out to explore what makes these practices meaningful to the participants themselves. On the basis of in-depth interviews conducted with the members of one group, we bring to the academic literature a scarcely analysed phenomenon that is nevertheless an acknowledged element of popular youth culture in contemporary South Africa. We attempt to place the practice of i’khothane within the context of the patterns of conspicuous consumption that have emerged in (a highly unequal) post-apartheid South Africa. While the practice of burning expensive consumer goods in public may seem alien, especially in contrast to the impoverished surroundings within which the i’khothane live, there are discernable and understandable reasons why the subculture has gained both popularity and notoriety. We show how the practice of i’khothane is a potent means of articulating youth identity in settings seemingly left behind by the ‘new’ South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
‘Unnatural’,‘un-African’and ‘ungodly’: homophobic discourse in democratic South Africa
- Vincent, Louise, Howell, Simon
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141570 , vital:37986 , DOI: 10.1177/1363460714524766
- Description: On 28 November 2006, South Africa’s legislature passed the Civil Union Act (No. 17, 2006), which legalised same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. While South Africa was fifth in the world to recognise the right of people of the same sex to marry, the country is by no means free of homophobic attitudes. However, we argue that an examination of the discourses embedded in the public discussion of gay marriage shows that the post-1994 period has not simply been a case of homophobia as usual. The altered context has given rise to the need for new ways of homophobic discourse to position itself. The rights enshrined in the Constitution represent a powerful set of ideas about the distinction between the democratic state and its apartheid predecessor. These ideas provide the dominant framework for political debate in the current context and it is therefore within this overarching framework that anti-gay sentiments must find a way to express themselves that has legitimacy. Our finding is that the reinscription of homophobia in an era of the ascendancy of human rights discourse has been chiefly in terms of three potent legitimising tropes – homosexuality as ‘unAfrican’, ‘unGodly’, and ‘unnatural’. It is only by deepening our understanding of the terms in which homophobia is being articulated in the current period that we can develop effective counter discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141570 , vital:37986 , DOI: 10.1177/1363460714524766
- Description: On 28 November 2006, South Africa’s legislature passed the Civil Union Act (No. 17, 2006), which legalised same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. While South Africa was fifth in the world to recognise the right of people of the same sex to marry, the country is by no means free of homophobic attitudes. However, we argue that an examination of the discourses embedded in the public discussion of gay marriage shows that the post-1994 period has not simply been a case of homophobia as usual. The altered context has given rise to the need for new ways of homophobic discourse to position itself. The rights enshrined in the Constitution represent a powerful set of ideas about the distinction between the democratic state and its apartheid predecessor. These ideas provide the dominant framework for political debate in the current context and it is therefore within this overarching framework that anti-gay sentiments must find a way to express themselves that has legitimacy. Our finding is that the reinscription of homophobia in an era of the ascendancy of human rights discourse has been chiefly in terms of three potent legitimising tropes – homosexuality as ‘unAfrican’, ‘unGodly’, and ‘unnatural’. It is only by deepening our understanding of the terms in which homophobia is being articulated in the current period that we can develop effective counter discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
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