{"title":"Sustainable development of a researcher’s career trajectory","authors":"J. Rossouw","doi":"10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85418475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Academic women departmental heads’ coping mechanisms during COVID-19: A capabilities approach perspective","authors":"Nthuna Juliet Ramohai, Somarie Holtzhausen","doi":"10.38140/pie.v40i4.6190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38140/pie.v40i4.6190","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explored women departmental heads’ leadership experiences in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper highlighted aspects of their care and coping mechanisms in terms of them working in virtual spaces. Most scholars have examined employees’ effects and challenges while working from home during a lockdown. However, most studies are silent on women in leadership, especially concerning the provision of resources to enhance effective leadership during this crisis. The paper draws on three concepts of Sen’s Capabilities approach: functionings, freedoms, and agency. This approach facilitates an incisive understanding of institutional and individual coping mechanisms that might be beneficial for women leaders to mitigate the challenges of the devastating COVID-19 lockdowns. The qualitative narrative approach, supported by a feminist lens, provides a critical, in-depth understanding of the real-life stories of women in leadership positions when making-sense of their challenges in working in a virtual environment. Data which was collected through semi-structured interviews with ten female heads of department, was analysed thematically by applying the Capabilities Approach as an analytical tool. The findings indicated that functionings and freedoms are inextricably intertwined to institutional ethnographies. These ethnographies might support or hamper the coping capabilities of women leaders in academic institutions, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83568467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“The new normal”: A case study on the emergent transition towards online teaching and learning in internal medicine and anaesthesiology at the University of the Free State","authors":"Mojaesi Violet Phejane","doi":"10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i1.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i1.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83532119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Applying systems principles to achieve greater integration of student support at a decentralised institution","authors":"Riashna Sithaldeen, Ermien van Pletzen","doi":"10.38140/pie.v40i4.6005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38140/pie.v40i4.6005","url":null,"abstract":"The role of student support in enabling successful student outcomes is widely acknowledged. However, student support functions and the structures within which they reside often emerge independently at universities, and are seldom designed with integration in mind, leading to systemic inefficiencies. This paper draws on systems thinking to develop a framework to guide the assessment and improvement of student support. Following an exploratory case study design, we collected data on staff and student perceptions of student support by conducting semi-structured interviews and a focus group in a single faculty within a South African university. These data are analyzed alongside several documents produced by the faculty that refer to, and are part of, student support. We map four student support functions used by students within the faculty. These are: orientation, student advising, peer mentoring, and career advising. The analyses reveal that student support in the faculty does not constitute an integrated system and that this creates challenges in communication, continuity and efficiency of student support within the faculty. This paper argues that by adapting existing support structures to closer approximate an integrated system we can increase the efficiency of student support without the need for complete redesign or a significant increase in resources or staff capacity.","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80716047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discourse in curriculum policy enactment: a focus on leadership practices","authors":"René Terhoven","doi":"10.38140/pie.v40i4.6003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38140/pie.v40i4.6003","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the prevailing discourse in the enactment of governmental curriculum policy via the leadership practices of school management teams (SMTs). Based on qualitative research in three selected working class schools, the article explores how the working class context positions schools in distinct ways to enact curriculum policy. Stephen Ball and colleagues’ policy enactment theory is employed as a lens to investigate the enactment of curriculum policy via the four core leadership practices of setting direction, developing people, redesigning the organisation and managing teaching and learning. It is argued that these working class schools are regulated by the incoming discourse of the curriculum policy and they respond to this incoming discourse in an almost robotic way. The article highlights the two-folded nature of discourse, i.e. the incoming discourse of the curriculum policy, and the schools’ discursive responses. The results indicate that the SMT’s leadership practices are fundamentally impacted and determined by the schools’ materiality and discursive constructions.","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79492669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The management and governance conundrum in South African public schools: principals’ perspectives","authors":"J. Kruger, J. Beckmann, André du Plessis","doi":"10.38140/pie.v40i4.5735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.38140/pie.v40i4.5735","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction of school governing bodies (hereinafter SGBs) changed the roles and functions of principals dramatically when this new approach to school governance and professional management (referred to as a participatory decision-making approach) was activated when the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 (hereinafter SASA) was implemented in January 1997. Consequently, the principal is no longer the only decision-maker in the school. The principal as the protagonist in school management and governance (implementing SGB policy) is the role-player most affected by the introduction of the participatory decision-making approach. In this article, we discuss principals’ perspectives regarding the shared participatory decision-making approach and the effects thereof on the relationship between the principal and the SGB. In this regard, it is important to note that the perceptions the two parties have of each other are established by the SGB’s encroachment on the professional management functions of the principal and vice versa. The research findings concluded that the relationship between the principal and the SGB is often a relationship characterised by tension, no trust and irrational actions by the SGB. The relationship is further influenced by the functionality or lack of functionality of SGBs as well as prevailing socio-economic conditions and SGB members’ levels of literacy. On the other hand, principals who do not adapt to participatory decision-making, and who still implement an assertive autocratic management approach, also contribute to a turbulent relationship.","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85115155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Du Preez, L. le Grange, S. Maistry, S. Simmonds
{"title":"On sustainability and higher education: Towards an affirmative ethics","authors":"P. Du Preez, L. le Grange, S. Maistry, S. Simmonds","doi":"10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83146269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of higher education institutions in addressing South Africa’s reading crisis in view of sustainable development","authors":"M. Cronje","doi":"10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i3.12","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82325444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Mtshali, Jabulisile C. Ngwenya, Thandanani Myende
{"title":"Teachers’ perceptions of the factors influencing rural school Grade 12 Business Studies learner performance in the National Senior Certificate","authors":"M. Mtshali, Jabulisile C. Ngwenya, Thandanani Myende","doi":"10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593x/pie.v40.i2.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86304975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}