The supervisor’s tale: postgraduate supervisors’ experiences in a changing Higher Education environment
- Authors: Searle, Ruth Lesley
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Graduate students -- Supervision of -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa , Archer, Margaret Scotford -- Political and social views , Critical realism , Knowledge, Sociology of , Dissertations, Academic , Faculty advisors -- South Africa , Education -- Study and teaching (Graduate) -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Graduate work
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1331 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019952
- Description: The environment in which higher education institutions operate is changing, and these changes are impacting on all aspects of higher education, including postgraduate levels. Changes wrought by globalisation, heralded by rapid advances in technology have inaugurated a new era in which there are long term consequences for higher education. The shift towards more quantitative and measurable "outputs" signifies a fundamental change in the educational ethos in institutions. Effectiveness is now judged primarily on numbers of graduates and publications rather than on other aspects. The drive is to produce a highly educated population, especially through increasing postgraduates who can drive national innovation and improve national economies. This affects academics in a range of ways, not least in the ways in which they engage in teaching, what they are willing to do and how they do it. Such changes influence the kinds of research done, the structures and funding which support research, and thus naturally shapes the kinds of postgraduate programmes and teaching that occurs. This study, situated in the field of Higher Education Studies, adopting a critical realist stance and drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and the concepts of expert and novice, explores the experiences of postgraduate supervisors from one South African institution across a range of disciplines. Individual experiences at the level of the Empirical and embodied in practice at the level of the Actual allow for the identification of possible mechanisms at the level of the Real which structure the sector. The research design then allows for an exploration across mezzo, macro and micro levels. Individuals outline their own particular situations, identifying a number of elements which enabled or constrained them and how, in exercising their agency, they develop their strategies for supervision drawing on a range of different resources that they identify and that may be available to them. Student characteristics, discipline status and placement, funding, and the emergent policy environment are all identified as influencing their practice. In some instances supervisors recognise the broader influences on the system that involve them in their undertaking, noting the international trends. Through their narratives and the discourses they engage a number of contradictions that have developed in the system with growing neo-liberal trends and vocationalism highlighting tensions between academic freedom and autonomy, and demands for productivity, efficiency and compliance, and between an educational focus and a training bias in particular along with others. Especially notable is how this contributes to the current ideologies surrounding knowledge and knowledge production. Their individual interests and concerns, and emergent academic identities as they take shape over time, also modifies the process and how individual supervisors influence their own environments in agentic moves becomes apparent. Whilst often individuals highlight the lack of support especially in the early phases of supervision, the emergent policy-constrained environment is also seen as curtailing possibilities and especially in limiting the possibilities for the exercise of agency. Whilst the study has some limitations in the range and number of respondents nevertheless the data provided rich evidence of how individual supervisors are affected, and how they respond in varied conditions. What is highlighted through these experiences are ways pressures are increasing for both supervisors and students and changing how they engage. Concerns in particular are raised about the growing functional and instrumental nature of the process with an emphasis on the effects on the kinds of researchers being developed and the knowledge that is therefore being produced. As costs increase for academics through the environments developed and with the varied roles they take on so they become more selective and reluctant to expand the role. This research has provided insights into ideas, beliefs and values relating to the postgraduate sector and to the process of postgraduate supervision and how it occurs. This includes the structures and cultural conditions that enable or constrain practitioners as they develop in the role in this particular institution. It has explored some of the ways that mechanisms at international, national and institutional levels shape the role and practices of supervisors. The effects of mechanisms are in no way a given or simply understood. In this way the research may contribute to more emancipatory knowledge which could be used in planning and deciding on emergent policies and practices which might create a more supportive and creative postgraduate environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Searle, Ruth Lesley
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Graduate students -- Supervision of -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa , Archer, Margaret Scotford -- Political and social views , Critical realism , Knowledge, Sociology of , Dissertations, Academic , Faculty advisors -- South Africa , Education -- Study and teaching (Graduate) -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Graduate work
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1331 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019952
- Description: The environment in which higher education institutions operate is changing, and these changes are impacting on all aspects of higher education, including postgraduate levels. Changes wrought by globalisation, heralded by rapid advances in technology have inaugurated a new era in which there are long term consequences for higher education. The shift towards more quantitative and measurable "outputs" signifies a fundamental change in the educational ethos in institutions. Effectiveness is now judged primarily on numbers of graduates and publications rather than on other aspects. The drive is to produce a highly educated population, especially through increasing postgraduates who can drive national innovation and improve national economies. This affects academics in a range of ways, not least in the ways in which they engage in teaching, what they are willing to do and how they do it. Such changes influence the kinds of research done, the structures and funding which support research, and thus naturally shapes the kinds of postgraduate programmes and teaching that occurs. This study, situated in the field of Higher Education Studies, adopting a critical realist stance and drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and the concepts of expert and novice, explores the experiences of postgraduate supervisors from one South African institution across a range of disciplines. Individual experiences at the level of the Empirical and embodied in practice at the level of the Actual allow for the identification of possible mechanisms at the level of the Real which structure the sector. The research design then allows for an exploration across mezzo, macro and micro levels. Individuals outline their own particular situations, identifying a number of elements which enabled or constrained them and how, in exercising their agency, they develop their strategies for supervision drawing on a range of different resources that they identify and that may be available to them. Student characteristics, discipline status and placement, funding, and the emergent policy environment are all identified as influencing their practice. In some instances supervisors recognise the broader influences on the system that involve them in their undertaking, noting the international trends. Through their narratives and the discourses they engage a number of contradictions that have developed in the system with growing neo-liberal trends and vocationalism highlighting tensions between academic freedom and autonomy, and demands for productivity, efficiency and compliance, and between an educational focus and a training bias in particular along with others. Especially notable is how this contributes to the current ideologies surrounding knowledge and knowledge production. Their individual interests and concerns, and emergent academic identities as they take shape over time, also modifies the process and how individual supervisors influence their own environments in agentic moves becomes apparent. Whilst often individuals highlight the lack of support especially in the early phases of supervision, the emergent policy-constrained environment is also seen as curtailing possibilities and especially in limiting the possibilities for the exercise of agency. Whilst the study has some limitations in the range and number of respondents nevertheless the data provided rich evidence of how individual supervisors are affected, and how they respond in varied conditions. What is highlighted through these experiences are ways pressures are increasing for both supervisors and students and changing how they engage. Concerns in particular are raised about the growing functional and instrumental nature of the process with an emphasis on the effects on the kinds of researchers being developed and the knowledge that is therefore being produced. As costs increase for academics through the environments developed and with the varied roles they take on so they become more selective and reluctant to expand the role. This research has provided insights into ideas, beliefs and values relating to the postgraduate sector and to the process of postgraduate supervision and how it occurs. This includes the structures and cultural conditions that enable or constrain practitioners as they develop in the role in this particular institution. It has explored some of the ways that mechanisms at international, national and institutional levels shape the role and practices of supervisors. The effects of mechanisms are in no way a given or simply understood. In this way the research may contribute to more emancipatory knowledge which could be used in planning and deciding on emergent policies and practices which might create a more supportive and creative postgraduate environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Understanding the poverty-reducing livelihoods of child support grant caregivers in Riebeeck East, South Africa
- Authors: Chikukwa, Vimbainashe
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Archer, Margaret Scotford -- Political and social views , Child caregivers -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Public welfare -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Grants-in-aid -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Poverty -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Critical realism , South Africa -- Social conditions -- 1994- , South Africa -- Economic conditions -- 1991-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3393 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018196
- Description: In 1994, racial domination in the form of apartheid ended in South Africa and the first postapartheid government was elected through a non-racial and democratic franchise. The new government inherited an entrenched system of racial inequality as well as widespread poverty amongst the formerly oppressed population, and it sought to address these challenges through policies of redistribution based on a new progressive constitution which emphasised the realisation of socio-economic rights. At the same time, and despite its redistributive measures, the post-apartheid government has pursued a macro-economic strategy with pronounced neoliberal dimensions. One of its critical redistributive measures focuses on social assistance to poor blacks, and this has entailed the construction and expansion of a massive social grant system including the child support grant which is received by millions of black South Africans on a monthly basis. The objective of this thesis is to examine and understand the livelihoods of child support grant recipients (or caregivers) in the context of conditions of extreme vulnerability marked by poverty. It does so by focusing on the small town of Riebeek East located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Though undoubtedly child support grant caregivers are victims of poverty, the thesis demonstrates that they are not without agency. They exist in structural conditions of vulnerability and poverty, but they nevertheless seek to manoeuvre and negotiate their way in and through their conditions of existence. This does not necessarily alleviate their poverty in any significant manner but it does show evidence of reflexivity, decision-making and responsibility in the pursuit of livelihood practices and outcomes. In making this argument, I draw upon the mega-theory of Margaret Archer (specifically, her morphogenetic approach) and the more middle-level perspective of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Beyond contributing to the prevailing academic literature on the child support grant in South Africa, this thesis also hopefully makes a small contribution to controversies about structure and agency within sociology.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Chikukwa, Vimbainashe
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Archer, Margaret Scotford -- Political and social views , Child caregivers -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Public welfare -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Grants-in-aid -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Poverty -- South Africa -- Riebeek-Oos , Critical realism , South Africa -- Social conditions -- 1994- , South Africa -- Economic conditions -- 1991-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3393 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018196
- Description: In 1994, racial domination in the form of apartheid ended in South Africa and the first postapartheid government was elected through a non-racial and democratic franchise. The new government inherited an entrenched system of racial inequality as well as widespread poverty amongst the formerly oppressed population, and it sought to address these challenges through policies of redistribution based on a new progressive constitution which emphasised the realisation of socio-economic rights. At the same time, and despite its redistributive measures, the post-apartheid government has pursued a macro-economic strategy with pronounced neoliberal dimensions. One of its critical redistributive measures focuses on social assistance to poor blacks, and this has entailed the construction and expansion of a massive social grant system including the child support grant which is received by millions of black South Africans on a monthly basis. The objective of this thesis is to examine and understand the livelihoods of child support grant recipients (or caregivers) in the context of conditions of extreme vulnerability marked by poverty. It does so by focusing on the small town of Riebeek East located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Though undoubtedly child support grant caregivers are victims of poverty, the thesis demonstrates that they are not without agency. They exist in structural conditions of vulnerability and poverty, but they nevertheless seek to manoeuvre and negotiate their way in and through their conditions of existence. This does not necessarily alleviate their poverty in any significant manner but it does show evidence of reflexivity, decision-making and responsibility in the pursuit of livelihood practices and outcomes. In making this argument, I draw upon the mega-theory of Margaret Archer (specifically, her morphogenetic approach) and the more middle-level perspective of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Beyond contributing to the prevailing academic literature on the child support grant in South Africa, this thesis also hopefully makes a small contribution to controversies about structure and agency within sociology.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
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