Exploring and expanding teachers’ gender and culturally responsive practices when mediating learning of chemistry in rural schools in Namibia
- Authors: Haimene, Johanna Shetulimba
- Date: 2024-04-05
- Subjects: Chemistry Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia , Discrimination in education Namibia , Gender and education , Culturally relevant pedagogy Namibia , Cultural-historical activity theory , Expansive learning , Group work in education
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436535 , vital:73280 , DOI 10.21504/10962/436536
- Description: Gender and cultural dimensions are critical aspects of the education system. Schools are full of gender and cultural stereotypes when it comes to the teaching and learning of science. This calls for the teachers to be gender and culturally responsive in their science classrooms. This is also to ensure that the educational needs of both boys and girls are addressed. The Namibian National Curriculum for Basic Education advocates the application of gender equity at all levels and in every aspect of the curriculum and teachers are central to the implementation of this curriculum. However, while the policy has been formulated at the macro level of the education system, little if any research has been done in Namibia on exploring how teachers are coping with and implementing the curriculum based on gender and cultural aspects. This includes how teachers are responding to gender issues and how they eradicate bias and discrimination to ensure equality and equity for both boys and girls in their science teaching. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to explore and expand Grade 9 Physical Science teachers’ gender and culturally responsive practices in science classrooms when mediating learning of chemistry topics using acids and bases and combustion reactions as examples. The study focused on working with teachers with the purpose of improving their practices through collaborative partnerships and enriching all the participants (teachers and researcher) as they were seen as co-learners and co-researchers. Hence, this study was underpinned by interpretivist and critical paradigms. It adopted a case study research design. Six Grade 9 Physical Science teachers from the Oshikoto Region were the participants in this study. Qualitative data were generated using questionnaires, interviews (semi-structured and stimulated recall), classroom observations and Change Laboratory Workshops (CLWs) in which we co-developed a tool to address gender and cultural responsiveness. Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory and Engeström’s cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) were used as theoretical frameworks to surface contradictions or tensions that exist in the teaching and learning process. A thematic approach to data analysis was employed to come up with sub-themes and themes. The findings of the study revealed that the teachers seemed to have an understanding of being gender and culturally responsive when they are mediating their lessons. However, some contradictions constrained them from being gender and culturally responsive. The surfaced contradictions included the lack of examples that are not gender and culturally biased, poor participation of the learners during lesson presentation and low confidence among the learners and language barriers. In addition, the findings revealed that teachers need professional development in interpreting policies and the curriculum and techniques for analysing gender and cultural issues pertaining to the teaching and learning process. Through CLWs, we co-developed a mediational tool that could guide teachers on how to be gender and culturally responsive. The findings also revealed that participation of teachers in the CLWs equipped them with resources on how to be gender and culturally responsive in their classrooms. The study recommends that teachers need to be involved in continuing professional development to support them with the correct interpretation and enactment of the curriculum and other policies. The policy developers need to be in contact with the policy implementers to evaluate the implementation of these policies and provide guidance where necessary. Moreover, teachers need to form professional learning communities in order to share their best practices and transform them. This might assist them in addressing gender and cultural issues that are encountered in the teaching and learning process. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Secondary and Post School Education, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-04-05
Human Development, the Capability Approach and the Mediating of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: a case study of women’s empowerment through expansive learning in the Mzimvubu Catchment of the Eastern Cape province, South Africa
- Authors: Conde-Aller, Laura
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Expansive learning , Social learning , Transformative learning , Capabilities approach (Social sciences) , Women's rights South Africa Mzimvubu River Watershed , Women Economic conditions , Women Social conditions , Sustainable agriculture South Africa Mzimvubu River Watershed
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/366236 , vital:65845 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/366236
- Description: This study makes a contribution to the field of sustainable agricultural development and women empowerment in rural South Africa by examining the transformations derived from an expansive learning process with a women farmers group in terms of their food production capability expansion and empowerment as well as the well-being of their local catchment or landscape where their activity was situated. The study took place in the Lutengele villages along the upper reaches of the lower Mzimvubu Catchment near Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Women in southern Africa are significant contributors to household livelihoods through their household food production practices and at the same time they are also one of the primary natural resource users in rural landscapes. In this case study, historical and contemporary ethnographic and situational data revealed disjuncture between existing practice and the fulfilment of women aspirations with regard to food security and social and ecological well-being at large. As a result, central to this study were the concepts of aspirations and capabilities and the role that these played in transformative learning processes via formative intervention research (after Engeström’s concept of expansive learning). Expansive learning emerges from Vygotsky’s early work on mediation of learning through language and culture, which gave raise to Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Whereas the Capability Approach (CA) recognises that development interventions or initiatives should focus on “expanding the freedom that deprive people from enjoying their valued beings and doings” (Sen, 1999, p. 3), in other words, what people value or have reason to value. The Capability Approach coupled with CHAT deepens the contextual understanding of the agricultural activity system in light of the engendered power dynamics associated with women having access to productive resources, their culturally expected roles and responsibilities in the institution of their households, their families and the community at large, and most importantly, aspects of gerontocracy defined by their age and status in society. In addition, drawing on the Capability Approach as a lens to view agricultural development, social transformation and empowerment, provided the tools to conceptualise participants’ aspirations, their true value and the capabilities necessary for such aspirations to be realised in a context filled with socio-cultural and political power relations and dynamics faced especially by women. The first phase of the study set out to map the context in which the participants’ small-scale food production activity was situated, their aspirations relevant to sustainable agricultural livelihoods, food security, well-being and lastly, the main factors or contradictions inhibiting participants from attaining the aspired food production goals. During the initial phase of the expansive learning cycle I was able to address the first research question: What tensions and contradictions in aspiration-practice relationships shape household food security in the context of catchment management of the women farmers’ group or river forum in the Lutengele area? Twelve contradictions were identified from the historical and contemporary socio-cultural analysis of the home-based food production practices and agricultural activity in relation to the research participants’ envisaged aspirations, which under further scrutiny were thereafter considered by the participants as critical capabilities to pursue during the collective and transformative learning process in the second phase of the study. In the second phase of the study, a series of second stimuli were introduced in the form of conceptual and material tools and tasks with the aim to move participants along the expansive learning process. This led to the unfolding of the collectively defined Capability Learning Pathways for sustainable food production or expansion of their agricultural capability in the context of sustainability of the local micro-catchment or landscape. Through the various Change Laboratory workshops and supporting mini-cycles in the last stages of the formative interventionist research, participants’ learning and development was supported in a way that not only brought individuals together to co-design relevant solutions, strategies and working groups or committees, but also catalysed and amplified transformative agency and the expansion of food production capability, sustainable land use practices and ultimately empowerment. This answered the second and most important research question: Can, and if so, how can expansive social learning processes shape conversion factors for turning available resources into functionings that enhance household food security capabilities and ecological well-being? The methodology of expansive learning and formative interventionist research design intervention, with supporting mediating tools, has proven a positive intervention in the attainment of capabilities (or functionings) in relation to the participant’s aspired livelihoods and consequently improving their well-being as well as their ability to navigate through the various gendered power dynamics, especially for the young women participating in this study. The study proposes expansive learning as a suitable critical and transformative learning theory and methodology for the mediation of collective deliberations and the pursuit of capability development as charted by the learners’ collective and individual aspirations. This is a learning process that not only pursues the learners’ attainment of material and cognitive changes but also opens up new opportunities and most importantly, the freedom to exercise their agency no matter the circumstances they find themselves in – in other words, the freedom to aspire and to be, do and become what one values as instrumentally and intrinsically critical to live a life that they have reason to value. In sum, the unfolding of the expansive learning process happened at three levels: at the value clarification level in terms of human and non-human relationships and social relationality, the institutional level and the practices level. The study recommends further research on the suitability of expansive learning and Change Laboratories as a Capability Expansion Methodology involving human development and Capability Approach practitioners, particularly those with an interest in informal learning and community-based empowering initiatives. Additionally, further studies are also suggested for examining formative interventionist research as a participatory action research approach for capability development work in education and learning research and in different study fields and contexts. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
The development of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in the mediation of chemical equilibrium: A formative interventionist study
- Authors: Manamike, Tasara
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Chemical equilibrium , Chemistry Study and teaching (Secondary) Nambia , Expansive learning , Career development Nambia , Professional learning communities Nambia , Pedagogical content knowledge , Cultural-historical activity theory
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405300 , vital:70159
- Description: Persistent student errors in understanding chemical equilibrium as shown by poor student achievement in national examinations reflect student difficulties in learning and deficiencies in teaching methodologies. Studies which have been conducted in Namibia have explored the teaching of chemical equilibrium and revealed that teachers seem not to have adequate pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for mediating chemical equilibrium and therefore there is a need for continuing professional development (CPD). However, it seems the CPD facilitators also find this topic difficult and are unsure of which methods are really effective owing to the disagreements among teachers and researchers. In addition, current CPD practices ostensibly fail to address the teachers’ needs because the facilitators have their own commitments and accountabilities and may ignore teachers’ contexts. It is against this backdrop that I conducted this formative interventionist study to improve teachers’ PCK for mediating chemical equilibrium through expansive learning (learning something that does not yet exist). A blend of the interpretivist and critical paradigm underpinned this study, which assumed a transactional epistemology. The qualitative case study research design was used to gather in-depth information about the multiple realities of the participants, bearing in mind that teaching is idiosyncratic, and the teaching approaches or strategies employed heavily depend on the contexts. Accordingly, the cultural historical activity theory was used to guide the teachers’ activities during the intervention for generating the data which were analysed using the topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge. The study revealed that the participants faced challenges in their teaching, namely: (i) students’ difficulties with comprehension and (ii) teachers’ instructional problems or deficiencies in instructional skills. The findings also revealed that the intervention enabled the participants to collectively transform their practices and therefore address the major challenges in their practices, that is, they expansively learnt how to effectively teach chemical equilibrium. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-10-14