Green skills Transformative niches for greening work
- Authors: Ramsarup, Preesha , Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Jenkin, Nicola P
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436882 , vital:73313 , ISBN 978-981-15-6370-6 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6370-6_8
- Description: Supporting green skills development is integral in the transition to a green economy. Green skills can be difficult to define and measure at an aggregate level because they are a socially constructed concept, intangible and are often unobservable. Further, a demand-led approach to green skills has not worked because employers are unable to effectively articulate their needs to skills delivery bodies. This advances the need for a transformative methodology that is able to provide a more nu-anced view of skills planning to support green work. Drawing on transition theorists, this chapter demonstrates that greening work transitions occur in “niches” at local levels, where nexus concerns arise around the impetus to green work. Furthermore, it is from these transformative niches that wider social changes and regime shifts are driven or emerge. Using experiences from the chemicals sector in South Africa, the chapter illus-trates the need to develop non-reductionist conceptualisations that illustrate the “regime lock-ins” as well as green skills oppor-tunities at multiple levels.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Special section on urbanisation and ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa: Current status and scenarios
- Authors: Pauleit, Stephan , Lindley, Sarah , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183082 , vital:43910 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.09.008"
- Description: The African continent is facing unprecedented population growth in the 21st century. Most of this growth will be absorbed by urban areas where the overall population is projected to triple from presently appr. 400 people to 1.3 billion people in 2050 (UN-Habitat, 2014). In sub-Saharan Africa, which is the focus of this Special Issue, not only the number of megacities with more than 10 million such as Lagos will rise, but smaller or medium sized cities will attract most of this growth (UN-Habitat, 2014). The majority of this increase is taking place in the form of informal settlements where people are living in poverty and where basic facilities and services such as a secure supply of clean drinking water and safe waste water disposal are missing.
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- Date Issued: 2018
The green economy learning assessment South Africa: Lessons for higher education, skills and work-based learning
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182765 , vital:43872 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-03-2018-0041"
- Description: The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference to the competency framings of Scharmer (2009) and Wiek et al. (2011); and implications for university and work-based sustainability education, broadly conceptualised in a just transitions framework. The assessment was conducted using desktop policy reviews and an audit of sustainability education providers, online questionnaires to sector experts, focus groups and interviews with practitioners driving green economy initiatives. Policy monitoring and evaluation, and education for sustainable development, emerged as key change levers across nine priority areas including agriculture, energy, natural resources, water, transport and infrastructure. The competencies required to drive sustainability in these areas were clustered as technical, relational and transformational competencies for: making the case; integrated sustainable development planning; strategic adaptive management and expansive learning; working across organisational units; working across knowledge fields; capacity and organisational development; and principle-based leadership. Practitioners develop such competencies through formal higher education and short courses plus course-activated networks and “on the job” learning. The paper adds to the literature on sustainability competencies and raises questions regarding forms of hybrid learning suitable for developing technical, relational and transformative competencies. A national learning needs assessment methodology and tools for customised organisational learning needs assessments are shared. The assessment methodology is novel in this context and the workplace-based tools, original.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Think Piece: Pioneers as relational subjects? Probing relationality as phenomenon shaping collective learning and change agency formation
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182787 , vital:43874 , xlink:href="DOI 10.4314/sajee.v34i1.5"
- Description: This paper deliberates on how relationality is framed in collective learning and change agency formation processes, with an emphasis on green economy and renewable energy learning contexts. The paper is not focused on empirical analysis of relationality in collective learning, but rather probes the phenomenon in order to provide more carefully constituted theoretical and analytical tools for further empirical research. The paper uses references to South African and Danish cases (albeit in slightly different ways), and, through this, it sets out to provide tools for generative insights and research into a recent international policy and strategy process which is bringing national-level Green Economy Learning Assessments (GELA) into being, including one in South Africa. Central to these GELAs is the notion of participatory or relational competence, which appears to be a central feature of collective learning, although this is not empirically analysed in this paper. In case study work undertaken for the GELA in South Africa that focused on South Africa’s major renewable energy development, and in the Samsø Island renewable energy transition case in Denmark, this competence appeared to come into focus in praxis. Interestingly, however, it appeared to come into focus colloquially as a discourse on ‘pioneers’ or ‘champions’, a phenomenon noticed in both the South African and Danish contexts. This paper probes this phenomenon further, especially since it initially appears to be contradictory to the emphasis on participatory and relational competence in the GELA study framework. This is because the concept of ‘pioneer/champion’ appears to highlight individual capabilities rather than collective, relational competences. Yet, on closer inspection, it is indeed the relational competences of the pioneer/champion, who is constituted as a ‘relational subject’ with a key role to play in producing shared relational goods, that appears to be significant to the collective learning and action process. This, as argued in the paper, requires a differentiation of relationism and relational realism. This Think Piece, which thinks with both theory and praxis, therefore offers a possible framework for more detailed empirical studies on relationality in collective learning and change agency formation.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Towards transformative social learning on the path to 1.5 degrees
- Authors: Macintyre, Thomas , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Wals, Arjen E , Vogel, Coleen , Tassone, Valenina
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182461 , vital:43832 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.12.003"
- Description: This paper provides insights into learning orientations and approaches that encourage change and transformation on the path to achieving the 1.5 degree C target. This literature review of the climate change and education/learning interface positions relevant literature in a heuristic tool, and reveals different learning approaches to addressing climate change. We highlight that although traditional lines of departure for achieving climate targets are usually technocratic in nature, especially if a zero emissions pathway is aimed for, there is an increasing realisation that climate issues are complex, deeply intertwined with unsustainable development and cultural change, and require collective engagement. Through considering the 1.5 degree C target as a metaphor for the fundamental changes needed in society, we argue that a wide range of learning orientations, including more inclusive and transformative social learning approaches, are needed to address the colossal challenges facing society.
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- Date Issued: 2018
An Expanded Methodological View on Learning Pathways as Educational and Occupational Progression: A ‘Laminated Systems’ Perspective
- Authors: Ramsarup, Preesha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436344 , vital:73262 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: As shown across the collection of papers in this Bulletin, the central ques-tion that the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)-Rhodes Uni-versity research programme tried to explore was to understand the na-ture of environmental learning pathways and the systemic and agentive factors that shape their emergence. This was based on an emerging un-derstanding of the demand for environment and sustainable development occupations and greening of existing occupations (see Introduction, and Papers 1 and 7 in this Bulletin; Department of Environmental Affairs [DEA], 2010; International Labour Organisation [ILO], 2010; Rosenberg et al 2016).
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- Date Issued: 2017
An In-depth Case Study of Environmental Engineering Learning and Work Transitioning in Boundary-less Work
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436361 , vital:73264 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: Environmental issues are increasingly seen as complex, multi-faceted and integral to social and economic development. As societies grapple with the rapid and catastrophic effects of environmental degradation, occupa-tional and educational systems have to comprehend meaningfully, the implications. In a study on the ‘Green Skills’59 in South Africa’s economy, the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2010:19) noted that “new skills and retraining needs for the greening sector should filter successfully through the ‘demand and supply’ process”. However, despite the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) commitment to responsive skills devel-opment and lifelong learning, several recent studies (including Depart-ment of Environmental Affairs [DEA], 2010; Human Sciences Research Council [HSRC], 2009) have highlighted many skills and competence-related issues within environmental provisioning. While there is a skills development focus and a greening focus, there is little articulated align-ment between the two (ILO, 2010), which highlights that the whole sys-tem of training provisioning for workplace learning and sustainability practices is poorly constituted and unresponsive to the rapidly changing nature of the sector.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Boundary making and boundary crossing in learning pathways access and progression: Voices from the workplace
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Mohanoe, M Nthabiseng , Ramsarup, Preesha , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436374 , vital:73265 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In the South African Qualifications Authority and Rhodes University (SAQA-Rhodes) partnership research it was found that ‘researching the boundary’is an important unit of analysis in learning pathways research (see Papers 1 and 2 in this Bulle-tin). The researchers have argued that this focus has rele-vance for discussions on articulation, as articulation is a boundary crossing practice39. However, to understand boundary crossing processes, it is important to understand what the boundaries are in learning pathways research and to understand how these boundaries were developed. Bounda-ries in learning pathways are both social and material and are constructed by people’s actions and practices, and can only be resolved through people’s actions and practices. This pa-per–Paper 5–considers the manner in which social-material factors are ‘boundary makers’ in learning pathways, affecting access, mobility, progression and articulation possibilities, with specific reference to articulation between workplace experi-ences and contexts on one hand, and education and training systems on the other. The paper argues for a perspective on the social-material that includes the Critical Realist concept of ‘absence’(Bhaskar, 1993) as an important shaping force in learning pathways research (see Paper 4, in this Bulletin). By identifying ‘boundary making’processes and factors, as articu-lated through ‘voices in the workplace’[one perspective on this issue], the paper identifies key areas for ‘boundary cross-ing’practices in the South African National Qualifications Framework (NQF) system and its associated sub-systems.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Decolonisation as future frame for environmental and sustainability education: embracing the commons with absence and emergence
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437466 , vital:73386 , ISBN 9789086868469 , https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-846-9_2
- Description: This chapter considers how engagement with decolonization history, theory and practice may provide an interesting future frame for Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE). The chapter provides an overview of some of the key dynam-ics of decolonization thinking that are circulating at present, and considers particularly the problematique of absence and emergence. It argues for giving attention not only to critical analysis of colonization concerns (ie identification of absence), but also to expansive, emergent theories of learning which we might mobilise in environmental and sustainability education (ESE) out of our existing forms of being in order to re-imagine new becomings that are oriented to the common good (ie pro-cesses of emergence). In situating the argument within wider discourses around education and the common good, this chapter argues that decolonisation is a project that concerns us all (not only those in the global South), given the contempo-rary realities and geopolitics of resource flows, hypercapitalism, colonization by market logic, and the privatisation of the commons.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Enabling green skills: Pathways to sustainable development
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Ward, Mike , Rosenberg, Eureta , Jenkin, Nicola P , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436702 , vital:73294 , ISBN 978-0-620-79605-7 , https://www.vetafrica4-0.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Green-Skills-Sourcebook-Jul18.pdf
- Description: The purpose of this source book is to support skills planning entities to work with employers to identify and anticipate green skills needs and to build these needs into occupational de-scriptors and sector skills plans. Thus, the source book com-plements the existing Enabling Document (DEA, 2010b) and provides guidelines to support Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) to embed environmental considerations, related occupations and green skills into their skills planning processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Introduction: Researching sustainable development learning pathways towards progression in learning and work
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha , Bolton, Heidi
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436401 , vital:73269 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: Environment and sustainable development issues are increasingly seen as complex, multi-faceted and integral to social and economic development, as can be seen from the recently proclaimed sustainable development goals (www.globalgoals.org1 ). As societies grapple with the rapid and catastrophic effects of environmental degradation, anthropogenic earth system change and a long history of unsustainable development, educa-tional systems have had to attempt to comprehend meaningfully, the im-plications. Within post-apartheid South Africa, these challenges are mark-edly more complex. In a country facing fundamental national transfor-mation on every front, the environment and sustainable development discourses are raising significant new challenges for work and learning systems.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Learning pathways and articulation: Early conceptual explorations and implications for research design (s)
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436388 , vital:73268 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: This paper is an introductory, exploratory paper which opened up the ter-rain for a second phase of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)-Rhodes University research partnership focusing on change-oriented workplace learning and sustainability practices, with an emphasis on learning pathways (the main period being 2011-2013, ongoing until 2016). The paper reviews early conceptual explorations of learning path-ways and articulation questions, as these relate to a transversal issue8 in the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), namely environment and sustainable development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Using Dialectical Critical Realism in the Analysis of Career Stories in Learning Pathways Research
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436416 , vital:73270 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In this paper we expand on our earlier methodological deliberations asso-ciated with differentiation within systems, boundaries and transition mechanisms (see Paper 2 in this Bulletin). We explore the potential for using a combination of two methodological tools for our learning path-ways research, in order to address the central methodological question raised through the literature review of learning pathways research, which highlighted a macro-micro dualism this area of study (see Paper 3 in this Bulletin). In Paper 4, we seek to explore whether Bhaskar’s (1993) dialec-tical approach may help with addressing this methodological dualism. We do this through applying the dialectical method, to career stories research approaches, which are one of the foundational approaches used in learn-ing pathways research (see Paper 3 in this Bulletin). Our analysis in this paper therefore uses (a) the development of ‘career stories’ and (b) Criti-cal Realist analysis of these career stories, using Bhaskar’s (1993) dialecti-cal method which foregrounds both absence and emergence.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Agentive learning for sustainability and equity: Communities, cooperatives and social movements as emerging foci of the learning sciences
- Authors: Engeström, Yrjö , Sannino, Annalisa , Bal, Aydin , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona , Chikunda, Charles , Lesama, Manoel F , Picinatto, Antonio C , Querol, Marco P , Lee, Yew J
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , symposium
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436670 , vital:73292 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0852-4 , https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/372
- Description: This symposium expands the object and scope of the learning sciences by introducing communities, cooperatives and social movements as crucially important sites of learning. The sym-posium papers employ and critically interrogate cultural-historical activity theory, specifically the theory of expansive learning, and the emerging methodology of formative interven-tions as a potential framework for dealing with learning in communities, cooperatives and social movements. Expansive learning emerges as a process of revitalizing the commons, or commoning. The contributions of the symposium point toward the importance of analyzing and fostering transformative agency as a quality of learning.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Citizen Monitoring of The National Water Resource Strategy 2 (NWRS2)
- Authors: Wilson, Jessica , Munnik, Victor , Burt, Jane C , Pereira, Taryn , Ngcozela, Thabang , Mokoena, Samson , Lusithi, Thabo , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ndhlovu, December , Ngcanga, Thandiwe , Tshabalala, Mduduzi , James, Manelisi , Mashile, Alexander , Mdululi, Patricia
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436812 , vital:73307 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0922-4 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2313%20_final.pdf
- Description: In 2014, the South African Water Caucus (SAWC), a network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) who are active in the water sec-tor, embarked on a social learning and action research journey supported by the South African Water Research Commission (WRC) to deepen its monitoring of South Africa’s Second Na-tional Water Resources Strategy (NWRS2). They focused on three issues in three cases study areas.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Citizen Monitoring of the NWRS2. WRC report 2313
- Authors: Wilson, Jessica , Munnik, Victor , Burt, Jane C , Pereira, Taryn , Ngcozela, Thabang , Lusithi, Thabo , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432979 , vital:72920 , xlink:href="https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2313%20_final.pdf"
- Description: In 2014, the South African Water Caucus (SAWC), a network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) who are active in the water sector, embarked on a social learning and action research journey supported by the South African Water Research Commission (WRC) to deepen its monitoring of South Africa’s Second National Water Resources Strategy (NWRS2). They focused on three issues in three cases study areas.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Co-designing research on transgressive learning in times of climate change
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ali, Million B , Mphepho, Gibson , Chaves, Martha , Macintyre, Thomas , Pesanayi, Tichaona V , Wals, Arjen E , Mukute, Mutizwa , Kronlid, David O , Tran, Duc , Joon, Deepika , McGarry, Dylan K
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182472 , vital:43833 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.04.004"
- Description: This paper reflects on the epistemological context for the co-design of a research programme on transformative, transgressive learning emerging at the nexus of climate change, water and food security, energy and social justice. It outlines a sequence of learning actions that we, as a group of collaborating partners in a Transformative Knowledge Network (TKN) undertook to co-design a research programme, firstly in situ in various case study contexts, and secondly together across case study contexts. Finally, it provides some reflections and learning points.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Reviewing strategies in/for ESD policy engagement: Agency reclaimed
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182483 , vital:43834 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2015.1113915"
- Description: In this response article, I draw on critical realist perspectives to engage with the argument put forward in Bengtsson's study, which sees agency as an ontological necessity for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) policy engagement. Bengtsson supports a notion of the logic of contingent action over the logic of power as dominance, suggesting possibilities for agency and resistance. Although I do not in principle disagree with the agentive possibilities embedded in this aspect of the Bengtsson argument, it is the scope of the conceptualization thereof that I consider in this response. I start with considering the limitations of a Westphalian analysis of policy appropriations and agency for ESD, and argue that the Westphalian frame for policy analysis may be inadequate for capturing the significance of non-state actors and wider generative mechanisms such as informal normative structures, and private, economic power in the global political economy. Drawing on Fraser's (2008) concept of the transnational public sphere, I explore other potential possibilities for agency-centered appropriations or negations of, and/or resistance to ESD policy discourses, potentially expanding the agency-centered perspective referred to in Bengtsson's analysis and critique of policy making for ESD, or, at the very least, by offering a wider view of possibility for what he refers to as the ‘ineradicable moment of conflict, or antagonism.’ In particular, I broaden the notion of the transnational public sphere to be inclusive of Dussel's (1998) three concerns of transformation, namely; poverty and wealth inequality, environmental degradation, and narrow rationalities involving ongoing colonization of people, territories and resources. In doing this, I concur with Fraser, who suggests that the concept of the public sphere may well be “so thoroughly Westphalian in its deep conceptual structure as to be unsalvageable as a critical tool for theorizing the present” and suggest that public sphere thinking and associated conceptions of agency require expansion, which I offer from postcolonial and decolonization literature, critical realism, ontological experiences, and reflection on Environmental Education (EE) /ESD policy in the southern African region. Ultimately, I propose need for a more radical framework for EE/ ESD policy research that reaches beyond analyses of appropriations of policy within the Wesphalian state framework, and that moves beyond critiquing or seeking out resistance moments associated with the assumptions of trickle down effects from UN level policy, or analysis that is centered on the EE versus ESD debate. Such a framework requires a revitalized notion of agency involving commitment to collective, relational (including the socio-materially relational) and transgressive forms of agency for deep societal transformations all round. Overall, it seems that environmental education policy and praxis research conceptualized within a decolonizing transnational sphere frame appears to still be an open and as yet under-explored terrain.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Water Use and Food Security: Knowledge Dissemination and Use in Agricultural Colleges and Local Learning Networks for Homestead Food Gardening and Smallholder Farming
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona , Weaver, Kim N , Lupele, Chisala , O’Donoghue, Rob B , Sithole, Phindile , van Staden, Wilna , Mabeza, Chris , Denison, C M Jonathan , Phillips, Katrina
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436825 , vital:73308 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0852-4 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2277-1-16.pdf
- Description: This final report has detailed the work that went into pilot testing an Ac-tion Oriented Strategy (AOS) to support Agricultural Colleges to make use of the two sets of WRC materials that were the focus of the project. The general objective of this project entitled “Action oriented strategy for knowledge dissemination and training for skills development of water use in homestead food gardening and rain water harvesting for cropland food production” was: To develop a strategy for achieving effective knowledge dissemination and practical training to encourage productive water use for food crop production [amongst smallholder farmers and food growers in South Africa].
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
A review of three generations of critical theory: Towards conceptualising critical HESD research
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437136 , vital:73345 , ISBN 9781315852249 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315852249-17/review-three-generations-critical-theory-heila-lotz-sisitka
- Description: To begin a review of the purpose(s) of ESD research, we must first ask the basic question of the purpose of research generally. Definitions of research normally centre on it comprising sys-tematic investigation which contributes to knowledge or under-standing of phenomena or a problem. A distinction is common-ly drawn between pure or basic research which focuses on understanding phenomena and issues, and applied research where the primary emphasis is on research which contributes to the solution of problems or some systemic improvement ra-ther than knowledge for its own sake. Some commentators see action research as a third category as it is predicated on the researcher being part of the research process which itself is committed to personal or social change. ESD research as an area of interest is perhaps unusual because it accommodates and crosses these categories. It also engages in philosophic research regarding cultural, worldview and ethical dimensions of sustainability education – critically important dimensions of ESD research, but not within the scope of this chapter. Re-search on – say – the relative effect of different pedagogies, or how a learning environ-ment affects learning, may be thought of as basic research, but at another level, ESD research is often purposeful beyond the accumulation of understanding about educational processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015