Legitimation of knowers for access in science
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70302 , vital:29643 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930701772788
- Description: Based on poor performance of students in the higher education science context, this paper questions the current focus on content knowledge and, in so doing, examines the role student knowers play in enabling epistemological access. Using Legitimation Code Theory, and drawing on data from interviews, course documents, observations, and critical reflections, the social relations of a science foundation course in the South African context are examined empirically to reveal the valuing of two kinds of knowers—learning-context knowers (or science learners) and production-context knowers (or scientists). Since being both kinds of knowers is necessary for access to powerful science knowledge, and home and educational contexts of certain groups of students are better in terms of enabling science knowers and learners than others, it is argued from a social justice perspective that science (and other) curricula account for knower attributes in enabling access for success for all students.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70302 , vital:29643 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930701772788
- Description: Based on poor performance of students in the higher education science context, this paper questions the current focus on content knowledge and, in so doing, examines the role student knowers play in enabling epistemological access. Using Legitimation Code Theory, and drawing on data from interviews, course documents, observations, and critical reflections, the social relations of a science foundation course in the South African context are examined empirically to reveal the valuing of two kinds of knowers—learning-context knowers (or science learners) and production-context knowers (or scientists). Since being both kinds of knowers is necessary for access to powerful science knowledge, and home and educational contexts of certain groups of students are better in terms of enabling science knowers and learners than others, it is argued from a social justice perspective that science (and other) curricula account for knower attributes in enabling access for success for all students.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
A code theory perspective on science access: clashes and conflicts
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61196 , vital:27989 , http://dx.doi.org/10.208535/31-3-1306
- Description: Quantitative measures of student performance fail to provide insight into underpinning constraints and enablements to access in science in higher education. This case study of a science foundation course uses Legitimation Code Theory as a theoretical frame and acquisition of recognition and realisation rules as an analytical frame to provide a depth empirical account of student access and success. Results indicate that access to the powerful science knowledge in the production (science) context is dependent on students recognising and realising the knower code of the learning context, which requires of them to be independent and autonomous learners. Such access is not afforded when students prior (school) learning-context relativist code clashes with the required university learning-context knower code. It is argued that a focus on the learning context could be key in enabling access to students whose educational background does not align well with that of the higher education context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61196 , vital:27989 , http://dx.doi.org/10.208535/31-3-1306
- Description: Quantitative measures of student performance fail to provide insight into underpinning constraints and enablements to access in science in higher education. This case study of a science foundation course uses Legitimation Code Theory as a theoretical frame and acquisition of recognition and realisation rules as an analytical frame to provide a depth empirical account of student access and success. Results indicate that access to the powerful science knowledge in the production (science) context is dependent on students recognising and realising the knower code of the learning context, which requires of them to be independent and autonomous learners. Such access is not afforded when students prior (school) learning-context relativist code clashes with the required university learning-context knower code. It is argued that a focus on the learning context could be key in enabling access to students whose educational background does not align well with that of the higher education context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Conceptualising knowledge for access in the sciences: academic development from a social realist perspective
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59863 , vital:27671 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0085-x
- Description: Whilst arguing from a social realist perspective that knowledge matters in academic development (AD) curricula, this paper addresses the question of what knowledge types and practices are necessary for enabling epistemological access. It presents a single, in-depth, qualitative case study in which the curriculum of a science AD course is characterised using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Analysis of the course curriculum reveals legitimation of four main categories of knowledge types along a continuum of stronger to weaker epistemic relations: disciplinary knowledge, scientific literacies knowledge, general academic practices knowledge and everyday knowledge. These categories are ‘mapped’ onto an LCT(Semantics)(how meaning relates to both context and empirical referents) topological plane to reveal a curriculum that operates in three distinct but interrelated spaces by facing towards both the field of science and the practice of academia. It is argued that this empirically derived differentiated curriculum framework offers a conceptual means for considering the notion of access to ‘powerful’ knowledge in a range of AD and mainstream contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59863 , vital:27671 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0085-x
- Description: Whilst arguing from a social realist perspective that knowledge matters in academic development (AD) curricula, this paper addresses the question of what knowledge types and practices are necessary for enabling epistemological access. It presents a single, in-depth, qualitative case study in which the curriculum of a science AD course is characterised using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Analysis of the course curriculum reveals legitimation of four main categories of knowledge types along a continuum of stronger to weaker epistemic relations: disciplinary knowledge, scientific literacies knowledge, general academic practices knowledge and everyday knowledge. These categories are ‘mapped’ onto an LCT(Semantics)(how meaning relates to both context and empirical referents) topological plane to reveal a curriculum that operates in three distinct but interrelated spaces by facing towards both the field of science and the practice of academia. It is argued that this empirically derived differentiated curriculum framework offers a conceptual means for considering the notion of access to ‘powerful’ knowledge in a range of AD and mainstream contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Framing of transitional pedagogic practices in the sciences: enabling access
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66381 , vital:28942 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1319812
- Description: publisher version , Educational literature shows that students from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to persist to completion in higher education than middle-class students. This paper draws theoretically and analytically on Bernstein’s ([1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge; 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield]) thesis that, through differential framing of pedagogic practices, the curriculum has capacity to accommodate all groups of students. Pedagogic practices in both a science foundation course and four first-year mainstream science courses in a higher education institution in the South African context are examined. Whilst the foundation course exhibits modalities that generally favour access, the mainstream courses have some modalities that appear to be constraining. It is argued from a social justice perspective that holistic curriculum transformations that better enable epistemic transitions are an urgent imperative, and that consideration of differential framing of pedagogic modalities offer a close-up empirical means of conceptualising such reforms.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66381 , vital:28942 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1319812
- Description: publisher version , Educational literature shows that students from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to persist to completion in higher education than middle-class students. This paper draws theoretically and analytically on Bernstein’s ([1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge; 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield]) thesis that, through differential framing of pedagogic practices, the curriculum has capacity to accommodate all groups of students. Pedagogic practices in both a science foundation course and four first-year mainstream science courses in a higher education institution in the South African context are examined. Whilst the foundation course exhibits modalities that generally favour access, the mainstream courses have some modalities that appear to be constraining. It is argued from a social justice perspective that holistic curriculum transformations that better enable epistemic transitions are an urgent imperative, and that consideration of differential framing of pedagogic modalities offer a close-up empirical means of conceptualising such reforms.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
'I always knew I would go to university': a social realist account of student agency: part 1
- Authors: Ellery, Karen , Baxen, Jean
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61207 , vital:27990
- Description: Academic development programmes at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa are often underpinned by discourses that view students as deficit. Archer's social realist ontology offers a means of understanding reflexivities and agency of students in the higher education context. Using narrative data and drawing on Archer's (2003) theory of mediation between structure and agency through internal conversations, this study examined the socio-economic background of one particular student, Thando, and his agential journey to arrive at the academy. The analysis reveals Thando has a deliberate and determined stance towards achieving his project of obtaining a tertiary education in order to realise a better life for himself and his family. Despite what could be perceived as constraining socio-cultural conditions, Thando strategically circumvents such restrictions and acts in ways that help him pursue his project. It is argued that student agency needs to take a more central place within academic development programmes in higher education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Ellery, Karen , Baxen, Jean
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61207 , vital:27990
- Description: Academic development programmes at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa are often underpinned by discourses that view students as deficit. Archer's social realist ontology offers a means of understanding reflexivities and agency of students in the higher education context. Using narrative data and drawing on Archer's (2003) theory of mediation between structure and agency through internal conversations, this study examined the socio-economic background of one particular student, Thando, and his agential journey to arrive at the academy. The analysis reveals Thando has a deliberate and determined stance towards achieving his project of obtaining a tertiary education in order to realise a better life for himself and his family. Despite what could be perceived as constraining socio-cultural conditions, Thando strategically circumvents such restrictions and acts in ways that help him pursue his project. It is argued that student agency needs to take a more central place within academic development programmes in higher education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Integrating scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a post-graduate professional degree
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ellery, Karen
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69489 , vital:29542 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37710
- Description: This article argues for the integration of both scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies within an Environmental Education (EE) post-graduate curriculum that is oriented towards sustainability and socio-ecological justice. It is an interpretive study based on an in-depth analysis of five assignments by four scholars registered for the M.Ed. EE course at Rhodes University where a contextualised, reflexive research process, based in a work-place context, forms the integrative pedagogic tool. Analyses indicate that involving students in such a process, with close support and guidance, is an effective means of developing both scholastic and practical epistemologies. It is concluded that research-led integration of scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a transformational curriculum has the potential to provide epistemological access to the academy, advance knowledge within disciplines, and challenge the dominance of scholastic knowledge in higher education settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69489 , vital:29542 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37710
- Description: This article argues for the integration of both scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies within an Environmental Education (EE) post-graduate curriculum that is oriented towards sustainability and socio-ecological justice. It is an interpretive study based on an in-depth analysis of five assignments by four scholars registered for the M.Ed. EE course at Rhodes University where a contextualised, reflexive research process, based in a work-place context, forms the integrative pedagogic tool. Analyses indicate that involving students in such a process, with close support and guidance, is an effective means of developing both scholastic and practical epistemologies. It is concluded that research-led integration of scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a transformational curriculum has the potential to provide epistemological access to the academy, advance knowledge within disciplines, and challenge the dominance of scholastic knowledge in higher education settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Knowing, acting and being: Epistemological and ontological access in a Science Extended Studies course
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69471 , vital:29540 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37737
- Description: Gross participation and throughput rates in higher education institutions in South Africa indicate an inequitable and poorly functioning system. This interpretive study argues for an approach that enhances epistemological and ontological access and examines how an intervention that includes an overt approach in dealing with the nature of science, coupled with student involvement in an independent research project in a Science Extended Studies course, can enhance such access to higher education study. Analysis of project outcomes and student critical reflections indicated access to scientific and academic Discourses was enhanced through: developing improved procedural and conceptual scientific knowledge; meaningful engagement with the language, norms and conventions of the Discourse; integrating everyday knowledge into more abstract scientific knowledge; awareness of the process of validation of scientific knowledge, of the limitations of science, and of the impact of science on society; and transforming personally by developing scientific discursive identity and a sense of belonging. In conclusion, it is argued that curriculum interventions that focus on epistemological and ontological aspects of learning could appropriately be used throughout the higher education science sector.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69471 , vital:29540 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37737
- Description: Gross participation and throughput rates in higher education institutions in South Africa indicate an inequitable and poorly functioning system. This interpretive study argues for an approach that enhances epistemological and ontological access and examines how an intervention that includes an overt approach in dealing with the nature of science, coupled with student involvement in an independent research project in a Science Extended Studies course, can enhance such access to higher education study. Analysis of project outcomes and student critical reflections indicated access to scientific and academic Discourses was enhanced through: developing improved procedural and conceptual scientific knowledge; meaningful engagement with the language, norms and conventions of the Discourse; integrating everyday knowledge into more abstract scientific knowledge; awareness of the process of validation of scientific knowledge, of the limitations of science, and of the impact of science on society; and transforming personally by developing scientific discursive identity and a sense of belonging. In conclusion, it is argued that curriculum interventions that focus on epistemological and ontological aspects of learning could appropriately be used throughout the higher education science sector.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Cultivating a scholarly community of practice
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ellery, Karen, Olvitt, Lausanne L, Schudel, Ingrid J, O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Schudel, Ingrid J , O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69777 , vital:29579 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15102
- Description: In the field of Environment and Sustainability Education we are seeking ways of developing our teaching and supervision practices to enable social changes in a rapidly transforming field of practice where global issues of truth, judgement, justice and sustainability define our engagements with the public good. This article explores the process of cultivating a scholarly community of practice as a model of supervision that not only engages scholars in an intellectual community oriented towards socio-ecological transformation, but also extends and enhances dialogue with individuals on the technical and theoretical aspects of their postgraduate studies.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Schudel, Ingrid J , O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69777 , vital:29579 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15102
- Description: In the field of Environment and Sustainability Education we are seeking ways of developing our teaching and supervision practices to enable social changes in a rapidly transforming field of practice where global issues of truth, judgement, justice and sustainability define our engagements with the public good. This article explores the process of cultivating a scholarly community of practice as a model of supervision that not only engages scholars in an intellectual community oriented towards socio-ecological transformation, but also extends and enhances dialogue with individuals on the technical and theoretical aspects of their postgraduate studies.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
An investigation into electronic-source plagiarism in a first-year essay assignment
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70114 , vital:29621 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930701772788
- Description: Since the emergence of the electronic era, plagiarism has become an increasingly prevalent problem at tertiary institutions. This study investigated the role electronic sources of information played in influencing plagiarism in an essay assignment in a first-year geography module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Despite explicit instruction in tutorials on academic writing, referencing and plagiarism, a quarter of students still plagiarised in their essay, with the majority having done so off the Internet. A survey questionnaire and interviews revealed that not only did the school writing experience prepare students poorly for academic writing discourses, but also highlighted that student ignorance with regard to acknowledgement of electronic sources, a pervasive perception of difference between electronic and print sources, as well as the availability of the copy-and-paste facility which reinforces the product view of writing, all contributed towards electronic-source plagiarism. Active instructional engagement with electronic-source material, and open dialogue on ownership of knowledge as well as on moral and ethical issues with students, are recommended as strategies to overcome such plagiarism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70114 , vital:29621 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930701772788
- Description: Since the emergence of the electronic era, plagiarism has become an increasingly prevalent problem at tertiary institutions. This study investigated the role electronic sources of information played in influencing plagiarism in an essay assignment in a first-year geography module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Despite explicit instruction in tutorials on academic writing, referencing and plagiarism, a quarter of students still plagiarised in their essay, with the majority having done so off the Internet. A survey questionnaire and interviews revealed that not only did the school writing experience prepare students poorly for academic writing discourses, but also highlighted that student ignorance with regard to acknowledgement of electronic sources, a pervasive perception of difference between electronic and print sources, as well as the availability of the copy-and-paste facility which reinforces the product view of writing, all contributed towards electronic-source plagiarism. Active instructional engagement with electronic-source material, and open dialogue on ownership of knowledge as well as on moral and ethical issues with students, are recommended as strategies to overcome such plagiarism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
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