The role of higher education in society: valuing higher education
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper , text
- Identifier: vital:7122 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006571
- Description: From the introduction: Arthur E. Levine, President of the Teachers College of Columbia University, writes that "In the early years of the Industrial Revolution, the Yale Report of 1828 asked whether the needs of a changing society required either major or minor changes in higher education. The report concluded that it had asked the wrong question. The right question was, What is the purpose of higher education?" Levine goes on to add that questions related to higher education “have their deepest roots in that fundamental question” and that “faced with a society in motion, we must not only ask that question again, but must actively pursue answers, if our colleges and universities are to retain their vitality in a dramatically different world”. I propose to speak about three issues: the first is about our changing world; the second is about the three purposes of higher education; the third is about what I consider to be the five key roles of higher education. Finally, I want to conclude by making some observations on the sometimes unrealistic expectations of higher education. , HERS‐SA Academy 2009, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Waterfront, Cape Town, 14 September 2009. Stagnant universities are expensive and ineffectual monuments to a status quo which is more likely to be a status quo ante, yesterday’s world preserved in aspic (Ralf Dahrendorf, 2000:106‐7)
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper , text
- Identifier: vital:7122 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006571
- Description: From the introduction: Arthur E. Levine, President of the Teachers College of Columbia University, writes that "In the early years of the Industrial Revolution, the Yale Report of 1828 asked whether the needs of a changing society required either major or minor changes in higher education. The report concluded that it had asked the wrong question. The right question was, What is the purpose of higher education?" Levine goes on to add that questions related to higher education “have their deepest roots in that fundamental question” and that “faced with a society in motion, we must not only ask that question again, but must actively pursue answers, if our colleges and universities are to retain their vitality in a dramatically different world”. I propose to speak about three issues: the first is about our changing world; the second is about the three purposes of higher education; the third is about what I consider to be the five key roles of higher education. Finally, I want to conclude by making some observations on the sometimes unrealistic expectations of higher education. , HERS‐SA Academy 2009, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Waterfront, Cape Town, 14 September 2009. Stagnant universities are expensive and ineffectual monuments to a status quo which is more likely to be a status quo ante, yesterday’s world preserved in aspic (Ralf Dahrendorf, 2000:106‐7)
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Using a transdisciplinary framework to examine mathematics classroom talk taking place in and through a second language
- Graven, Mellony, Robertson, Sally-Ann
- Authors: Graven, Mellony , Robertson, Sally-Ann
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69838 , vital:29586 , https://DOI: 10.1007/s11858-018-0952-2
- Description: This paper proposes a transdisciplinary framework to allow for a multifocal exploration of classroom talk practices. It draws on data from a broader study of talk in South African Grade 4 mathematics classrooms where the language of teaching and learning (English) was the home language for neither the teachers nor their students. Lesson transcript data from one teacher’s lessons on fractions are used to demonstrate how working with three strands of conceptual insight from the disciplines of psychology, sociology and linguistics conduces to a potentially richer understanding of a teacher’s use of classroom talk in mediating her students’ mathematical understanding. By drawing on elements of Vygotsky’s sociocultural psychology, we make visible in the lesson data the ways in which this teacher used the ‘everyday’ in trying to navigate her students’ towards more ‘scientific’ conceptualizations of unit fractions. By then taking up aspects of Bernstein’s sociological work, we articulate, and make visible, how societal circumstances impinge on students’ access to exploratory mathematical discourse needed for epistemological access to abstract and generalized mathematical concepts. Finally, through Halliday’s work on the power of particular linguistic registers for meaning-making, we highlight challenges in learning mathematics in and through a second language and reveal the constraints placed on students’ opportunity to maximally exploit the distinct forms of meaning contained within the mathematics register.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Graven, Mellony , Robertson, Sally-Ann
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69838 , vital:29586 , https://DOI: 10.1007/s11858-018-0952-2
- Description: This paper proposes a transdisciplinary framework to allow for a multifocal exploration of classroom talk practices. It draws on data from a broader study of talk in South African Grade 4 mathematics classrooms where the language of teaching and learning (English) was the home language for neither the teachers nor their students. Lesson transcript data from one teacher’s lessons on fractions are used to demonstrate how working with three strands of conceptual insight from the disciplines of psychology, sociology and linguistics conduces to a potentially richer understanding of a teacher’s use of classroom talk in mediating her students’ mathematical understanding. By drawing on elements of Vygotsky’s sociocultural psychology, we make visible in the lesson data the ways in which this teacher used the ‘everyday’ in trying to navigate her students’ towards more ‘scientific’ conceptualizations of unit fractions. By then taking up aspects of Bernstein’s sociological work, we articulate, and make visible, how societal circumstances impinge on students’ access to exploratory mathematical discourse needed for epistemological access to abstract and generalized mathematical concepts. Finally, through Halliday’s work on the power of particular linguistic registers for meaning-making, we highlight challenges in learning mathematics in and through a second language and reveal the constraints placed on students’ opportunity to maximally exploit the distinct forms of meaning contained within the mathematics register.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Cancer stem cells in breast cancer and metastasis:
- Lawson, Jessica C, Blatch, Gregory L, Edkins, Adrienne L
- Authors: Lawson, Jessica C , Blatch, Gregory L , Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/165057 , vital:41205 , DOI: 10.1007/s10549-009-0524-9
- Description: The cancer stem cell theory poses that cancers develop from a subset of malignant cells that possess stem cell characteristics and has been proposed to account for the development of a variety of malignancies, including breast cancer. These cancer stem cells (CSC) possess characteristics of both stem cells and cancer cells, in that they have the properties of self-renewal, asymmetric cell division, resistance to apoptosis, independent growth, tumourigenicity and metastatic potential. A CSC origin for breast cancer can neatly explain both the heterogeneity of breast cancers and the relapse of the tumours after treatment. However, many reports on CSC in the breast are contradictory. There is variation with respect to how breast cancer stem cells should be identified, their characteristics and a possible lack of correlation between clinical outcome and breast cancer stem cell status of a tumour. These combined factors have made breast cancer stem cells a highly contentious issue. In this review, we highlight the progress in the analysis of cancer stem cells, with an emphasis on breast cancer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Lawson, Jessica C , Blatch, Gregory L , Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/165057 , vital:41205 , DOI: 10.1007/s10549-009-0524-9
- Description: The cancer stem cell theory poses that cancers develop from a subset of malignant cells that possess stem cell characteristics and has been proposed to account for the development of a variety of malignancies, including breast cancer. These cancer stem cells (CSC) possess characteristics of both stem cells and cancer cells, in that they have the properties of self-renewal, asymmetric cell division, resistance to apoptosis, independent growth, tumourigenicity and metastatic potential. A CSC origin for breast cancer can neatly explain both the heterogeneity of breast cancers and the relapse of the tumours after treatment. However, many reports on CSC in the breast are contradictory. There is variation with respect to how breast cancer stem cells should be identified, their characteristics and a possible lack of correlation between clinical outcome and breast cancer stem cell status of a tumour. These combined factors have made breast cancer stem cells a highly contentious issue. In this review, we highlight the progress in the analysis of cancer stem cells, with an emphasis on breast cancer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Establishment of translocated populations of smallmouth yellowfish, Labeobarbus aeneus (Pisces: Cyprinidae), in lentic and lotic habitats in the Great Fish River system, South Africa
- Weyl, Olaf L F, Stadtlander, Timo, Booth, Anthony J
- Authors: Weyl, Olaf L F , Stadtlander, Timo , Booth, Anthony J
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124418 , vital:35607 , https://doi.org/10.3377/004.044.0109
- Description: As a result of numerous introductions and translocations of fishes, South Africa has recently been identified as a fish invasion hotspot (Leprieur et al. 2008). In freshwater ecosystems invasion by alien species is considered a leading mechanism driving environmental change (Clavero & Garcia- Berthou 2005; Garcia-Berthou et al. 2005). In South Africa, documented effects of fish invasions include the extirpation of indigenous fishes through predation (Cambray 2003), changes in invertebrate community structure (Lowe et al. 2008) and hybridization (Canonico et al. 2005). As a result, the management of alien species is a high national priority (National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 2004). Such management requires an understanding of the biology, ecology and establishment success of fishes outside their native range.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Weyl, Olaf L F , Stadtlander, Timo , Booth, Anthony J
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124418 , vital:35607 , https://doi.org/10.3377/004.044.0109
- Description: As a result of numerous introductions and translocations of fishes, South Africa has recently been identified as a fish invasion hotspot (Leprieur et al. 2008). In freshwater ecosystems invasion by alien species is considered a leading mechanism driving environmental change (Clavero & Garcia- Berthou 2005; Garcia-Berthou et al. 2005). In South Africa, documented effects of fish invasions include the extirpation of indigenous fishes through predation (Cambray 2003), changes in invertebrate community structure (Lowe et al. 2008) and hybridization (Canonico et al. 2005). As a result, the management of alien species is a high national priority (National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 2004). Such management requires an understanding of the biology, ecology and establishment success of fishes outside their native range.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Effects of food quality on tissue-specific isotope ratios in the mussel Perna perna
- Hill, Jaclyn M, McQuaid, Christopher D
- Authors: Hill, Jaclyn M , McQuaid, Christopher D
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444563 , vital:74251 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9865-y
- Description: Investigations into trophic ecology and aquatic food web resolution are increasingly accomplished through stable isotope analysis. The incorporation of dietary and metabolic changes over time results in variations in isotope signatures and turnover rates of producers and consumers at tissue, individual, population and species levels. Consequently, the elucidation of trophic relationships in aquatic systems depends on establishing standard isotope values and tissue turnover rates for the level in question. This study investigated the effect of diet and food quality on isotopic signatures of four mussel tissues: adductor muscle, gonad, gill and mantle tissue from the brown mussel Perna perna. In the laboratory, mussels were fed one of the two isotopically distinct diets for 3 months.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Hill, Jaclyn M , McQuaid, Christopher D
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444563 , vital:74251 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9865-y
- Description: Investigations into trophic ecology and aquatic food web resolution are increasingly accomplished through stable isotope analysis. The incorporation of dietary and metabolic changes over time results in variations in isotope signatures and turnover rates of producers and consumers at tissue, individual, population and species levels. Consequently, the elucidation of trophic relationships in aquatic systems depends on establishing standard isotope values and tissue turnover rates for the level in question. This study investigated the effect of diet and food quality on isotopic signatures of four mussel tissues: adductor muscle, gonad, gill and mantle tissue from the brown mussel Perna perna. In the laboratory, mussels were fed one of the two isotopically distinct diets for 3 months.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Some (more) features of conversation amongst women friends:
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139149 , vital:37709 , DOI: 10.2989/16073610509486400
- Description: This paper provides an analysis of a conversation between young women friends, which is analysed in terms of Coates’ (1988; 1997; 1999) work on the features of conversation amongst female friends. Coates identifies a number of features which, she says, are typical of conversation between (adult) female friends: a domestic setting, female participants, topics relating to people and feelings, and various formal features including smooth topic development, frequent minimal responses, supportive forms of simultaneous speech and epistemic modality (‘softening’ strategies, including tag questions) (Coates, 1988: 97). The overarching function, she claims, is one of solidarity-building and support: ‘the maintenance of good social relationships’ and ‘the reaffirming and strengthening of friendship’ (Coates, 1988: 98). While this last feature, the function of conversation between women friends, is borne out by the extract to be analysed, the participants in my study utilise different strategies to accomplish it and, in several respects, do not utilise the other features Coates claims to be typical. The research shows, through a detailed analysis of a nineminute extract from a conversation between three women friends, that the features assumed by Coates to be central conversational strategies in the building of female friendship are not the only ways for women to accomplish this function.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Hunt, Sally
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139149 , vital:37709 , DOI: 10.2989/16073610509486400
- Description: This paper provides an analysis of a conversation between young women friends, which is analysed in terms of Coates’ (1988; 1997; 1999) work on the features of conversation amongst female friends. Coates identifies a number of features which, she says, are typical of conversation between (adult) female friends: a domestic setting, female participants, topics relating to people and feelings, and various formal features including smooth topic development, frequent minimal responses, supportive forms of simultaneous speech and epistemic modality (‘softening’ strategies, including tag questions) (Coates, 1988: 97). The overarching function, she claims, is one of solidarity-building and support: ‘the maintenance of good social relationships’ and ‘the reaffirming and strengthening of friendship’ (Coates, 1988: 98). While this last feature, the function of conversation between women friends, is borne out by the extract to be analysed, the participants in my study utilise different strategies to accomplish it and, in several respects, do not utilise the other features Coates claims to be typical. The research shows, through a detailed analysis of a nineminute extract from a conversation between three women friends, that the features assumed by Coates to be central conversational strategies in the building of female friendship are not the only ways for women to accomplish this function.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
What services and supports are needed to enable trauma survivors to rebuild their lives? Implications of a systematic case study of cognitive therapy with a township adolescent girl with PTSD following rape
- Payne, Charmaine, Edwards, David J A
- Authors: Payne, Charmaine , Edwards, David J A
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6278 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008279
- Description: This systematic clinical case study describes the psychological assessment and treatment with cognitive therapy of Zanele, a Xhosa-speaking adolescent rape survivor with major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A case narrative was developed to document the main features of the therapy process and progress was monitored using scales measuring symptoms of depression and PTSD. The narrative documents the operation in a local context of factors that maintain PTSD that have been identified in the international literature and, with the self-report scales, provides evidence for Zanele’s recovery from PTSD and the transportability to this context of an evidence-based psychological treatment. The narrative also documents the lack of safety for young women and girls in a South African township as well as significant limitations in the professional services available: in this case, Zanele was infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases but medical management had not been followed through, and criminal charges against the rapist were dropped, and dropped again even after he had committed another rape on a six-year-old girl. This provides a basis for examining the complementary roles that can be played by psychologists and other professionals in empowering trauma survivors to regain a sense of dignity and control over their lives.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Payne, Charmaine , Edwards, David J A
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6278 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008279
- Description: This systematic clinical case study describes the psychological assessment and treatment with cognitive therapy of Zanele, a Xhosa-speaking adolescent rape survivor with major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A case narrative was developed to document the main features of the therapy process and progress was monitored using scales measuring symptoms of depression and PTSD. The narrative documents the operation in a local context of factors that maintain PTSD that have been identified in the international literature and, with the self-report scales, provides evidence for Zanele’s recovery from PTSD and the transportability to this context of an evidence-based psychological treatment. The narrative also documents the lack of safety for young women and girls in a South African township as well as significant limitations in the professional services available: in this case, Zanele was infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases but medical management had not been followed through, and criminal charges against the rapist were dropped, and dropped again even after he had committed another rape on a six-year-old girl. This provides a basis for examining the complementary roles that can be played by psychologists and other professionals in empowering trauma survivors to regain a sense of dignity and control over their lives.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
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