Cultural views are known to play a critical role in the identification, diagnosis and intervention of developmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Indigenous views regarding the nature and causes of ASD have often been overlooked. Based on the paucity of research on indigenous perspectives on ASD in South Africa, as well as the alarming rise in the incidence of ASD, the purpose of the study is to investigate the views held by members of the Sepedi group in South Africa regarding ASD. Research relating to ASD has mostly been conducted in other countries or according to Western or conventional scientifically proven positions. The study attempts to answer the following primary research question: “What are Sepedi cultural views regarding the nature, cause/s as well as intervention of Autism Spectrum Disorder?” The theoretical framework that was utilised during the study was that of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). Furthermore, the study was approached from a phenomenological paradigm. A qualitative approach as well as case study design were followed, and purposive sampling was used. The first method of data collection was a focus group and subsequently, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis to pinpoint recurring themes. These five themes are (1) Indigenous African Views, (2) Participants’ views of causes, (3) Circumstances surrounding diagnosis, (4) Personally coping with ASD, and (5) Intervention with a child with ASD. Results obtained from the study could be utilised within a diagnostic, intervention and educational approach that is uniquely South African. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Many South African Foundation Phase learners perform poorly in literacy, especially in reading and writing. The Annual National Assessment (ANA) results show that many Grade 3 learners experience difficulties in reading and in writing sentences from pictures (Howie, Venter, Van Staden, Zimmerman, Long, Scherman & Archer, 2008). The learners also struggle to produce meaningful written sentences, even though they are taught through the medium of their own home languages, including African languages (Department of Basic Education, 2013). To enrich learners’ language and literacy skills, the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) encourages the use of figurative and metaphorical language through the teaching of folklore. However, CAPS does not provide explicit guidelines on how folklore ought be taught to enhance learners’ literacy skills.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Parenting practices play a significant role in the raising healthy functioning children. Traditionally, Black African families have had their own way of parenting their children, like all other cultural groups. However, few guidelines have been developed and recorded regarding their parenting practices. Most available parenting practices guidelines have been developed from a Western perspective. The purpose of this study was to explore the indigenous parenting practices of Black African families, with the aim of developing indigenous parenting practices guidelines for parents and caregivers, including grandparents in the Makhuduthamaga Municipality of the Sekhukhune district. The theoretical framework underpinning this study is an Afrocentricity, which focuses on reclaiming African practices. A qualitative research method was used, guided by a case study research design. The researcher used purposive sampling to select a sample of 52 participants from six villages in the Makhuduthamaga Municipality of the Sekhukhune Districts, in Limpopo Province. The participants recruited were grandparents, traditional leaders and three age categories of parents. The number of participants were as follows: 18 parents, 29 grandparents, and 5 traditional leaders. Participation in the study was voluntary, while confidentiality and anonymity was maintained. Participants were thoroughly informed about the study, and offered their by signing the relevant consent forms.

Marginalizing indigenous experts was common practice during the colonial period in Uganda, and it has continued to some extent today. This study was an attempt to reclaim the indigenous history unmentioned by many Western scholars who were quick to glean a vast amount of indigenous knowledge, yet failed to recognize or credit the intellectual expertise and contributions of indigenous experts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the marginalization of an indigenous master-musician teacher as seen through the life experiences and career of Evalisto Muyinda (1916-1993). With a musical career that spanned over fifty years, Mr. Muyinda served as a leading teacher and performer of indigenous Ganda music in various institutions. Muyinda's contributions to the field of indigenous (Ganda) music teaching are many, yet his expertise and contributions to music education have not been fully explored. He served as a court musician in Kabaka Muteesa II’s palace from 1939 to 1966; he was chief musician at the Uganda Museum from 1948 to 1984; and he was a lead musician and innovator in Uganda's national cultural troupe (the Heart Beat of Africa) from 1963 to 1981. Mr. Muyinda's legacy continues to exist through the scholarly work of various music educators, ethnomusicologists and indigenous performers of Ganda music, who all credit their learning to this expert musician. World music scholars such as Klaus Wachsmann, Lois Anderson, Gerhard Kubik, and Peter Cooke all studied and researched indigenous Ganda music under Muyinda’s guidance and tutelage. In this study I examined Muyinda’s contributions to music education as a teacher and performer of indigenous (Ganda) music in twentieth century Uganda (1939-1993). Mr. Muyinda was a well-known resource for hundreds of indigenous Ganda folksongs that he used in teaching the akadinda and amadinda (xylophone) traditions to both local and foreign students. As a master musician-teacher, Muyinda also performed and taught indigenous music in several places in and outside Uganda. During Muyinda’s career and travels his music was recorded and archived in British and Viennese archival libraries, making these materials a useful resource for music educators and ethnomusicologists. The methodology employed in gathering data for this study included personal interviews with people who interacted with Evalisto Muyinda during his life time. Archived printed materials were carefully examined and used to construct a sequence of significant events as they unfolded in Muyinda's life experiences and career. Although Muyinda was not an expert musician in the Western formal sense, his expertise in indigenous music enabled him to serve as an accomplished teacher and research associate to the many Western scholars who worked with him. Since the marginalization of an indigenous master-musician teacher is the central focus of this study, Afrocentricity was used as the most suitable theoretical framework to discuss an African subject and the historical discourse involved. The current study would be of interest to music practitioners, researchers and historians with an interest in the indigenous music and music education of Uganda and other countries with a similar history.

No description available.

Introduction. This thesis is set in the field of critical knowledge organization and indigenous knowledge organi- zation. Building on the theory of domain analysis I chose the Saami Library in Sweden as the domain for this thesis. The purpose was to identify the structures of power affecting how the lives and experiences of the Saami people are represented in the library catalogue and in the classification systems used, and to examine the views on knowledge expressed in the classification systems. Theory and method. This thesis builds upon the writings on deconstruction. I seek to deconstruct the cata- logue and the classification system using tools derived from the writings of Jacques Derrida. Analysis. Nine posts from the catalogue, and the classification codes entered there were analysed. Emphasis was put on analysing the DDC classification as this is the primary classification system used. Results. From analysing the classifications and the catalogue posts I found that the representations of the Saami experiences varied depending on which subject class the book belonged to. A majority of the posts analysed were classified as social sciences in DDC whereas the classifications were more varied in the Swedish SAB- system. Conclusion. Two structures have been identified. The first structure places the Saami experiences as some- thing that is other, in relation to which the mainstream is defined. The second structure places the Saami experi- ences as part of a diversity, separate from the unity of the mainstream society. This structure only acknowledges the existence of diversity if this means that the position of the unity is strengthened. Concerning the second purpose of the thesis I find that a western knowledge perspective has got a hegemonic position in the DDC, which means that other knowledge systems such as indigenous knowledge is not seen as such but as something only related to a specific group. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Moving out of theoretical academic constructs, the indigenous movement has attracted the attention of the Malawian education system to explore the value for contextualizing science by way of indigenous technologies. This is a milestone decision but the beginning is not smooth. However, indigenizing the curriculum has a promise of hope to invigorate science educators to pursue the search for the science out of indigenous technologies out of the "taken for granted" and "place-based" traditional knowledge systems. This is only the beginning of the journey in pursuit of local sciences that bear a promise for sustainability in development without relying exclusively on the outcomes of globalization. This study sought to unravel the issues that surrounded implementation of ground braking primary school science and technology curriculum, which has integrated indigenous knowledge in the learning of science. Commencing prior to the implementation of the new curriculum, this was a pilot study strategically conceptualized and timed to inform the curriculum developers and other stakeholders about issues to pay attention to as the curriculum implementation process unfolds. The study revealed that teachers are likely to face multiple challenges stemming from the design of the curriculum, teachers background knowledge in academic science, pedagogical knowledge, and cultural foundations. The outcome of teaching was negatively affected by the design of the curriculum, teachers' knowledge of science, and attitudes toward indigenous knowledge. Recommendations for improving the integration of indigenous knowledge and science in the curriculum include the need to better articulate the scientific principles involved in indigenous technologies and to involve learners in meaningful "practical work" in science lessons, supported by further research. / Ph. D.

My thesis describes the praxis of geographical exploration in the mid-nineteenth century through the activities of members of the Royal Geographical Society of London (RGS). I focus on the First East African Expedition (1856-1859), which was led by Richard F. Burton. Geographical exploration was intended to provide data that would allow geographers in Britain to construct an accurate description of East Africa, with emphasis on the rivers and lakes that may contribute to the waters of the Nile and ethnographic research. Earlier geographies of the East African interior had relied upon a variety of sources: ancient, Arab, Portuguese, and local informants. In order to replace these sources with precise observation, the RGS provided some prescriptive instructions to explorers based upon the techniques of celestial navigation and surveying available for field research in the 1850s. The instructions emphasized careful, daily recording of data, using instruments as much as possible. However, in the field explorers experienced a diminished ability to control the consistency of their observations due to insufficient finances, politics, disease, and climate. Where unable to directly observe, they relied upon local informants for descriptions of the regional geography. These informants had a great impact upon the geographies produced by the expedition. In order to complete a full description of the praxis of geographical exploration it therefore becomes necessary to consider the expedition in its wider context--as a remote sensing tool for a scientific society and as a contingent of foreigners visiting a region for which they have little information and entered only with local permission. I propose that five steps, or contexts, must be considered during the analysis of expeditions: contact, acquisition, appropriation, reporting, meta-analysis. These steps make lucid the epistemic transformations that must take place as explorers gather data in the field. At each stage the identity of the individuals involved are contingent upon their relationship with each other and the information they desire. The relationship between explorers and local informants was especially critical to the establishment of credibility. Even when fully trusted by explorers, the British geographers who analyzed expedition data and generated maps of the region debated the veracity of local informants. Explorers (and by extension, local informants) found that other researchers, through the meta-analysis of expedition reports, appropriated any ownership of the information produced by expeditions. / Master of Science

<p><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi / mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">The basic premise of this study was that when a learner is confronted with two contradictory explanations of the same phenomenon, there is cognitive dissonance in the learner as the learner tries to determine which of the two explanations is correct. An argumentation-based instructional intervention programme (ABIIP) was created for and used on and by the Grade 10 learners in order to attempt to ameliorate this cognitive conflict. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The purpose of this study was to determine the relative impact of that intervention programme on Grade 10 learners&rsquo / conceptions of lightning and thunder. The programme was designed to help learners to develop argumentative skills and use the acquired skills to negotiate and harmonise divergent and conflicting explanations of the nature of lightning and thunder that are propounded by different worldviews (Science and indigenous knowledge).</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The research design was primarily a case study of 16 Grade 10 learners of the Xhosa ethnic group at a high school in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The Xhosa people are a typical example of a people whose cultural values were undermined and whose voice was silenced by the colonisers and whose local knowledge has been repressed and replaced by forms of Western privileged knowledge and understandings but who remain, deeply and resolutely, steeped in their cultural values and practices, making them a classic example of a people who would battle to harmonise the indigenous and the scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The research instruments used were questionnaires which were administered to learners, educators, community leaders, indigenous knowledge holders and experts to solicit information on causes, dangers and prevention of lightning / individual and group activities as learners went through the lessons on both argumentation and on lightning / follow up interviews and discussions with learners individually or in groups to seek further clarification of the ideas the learners would have raised in their earlier responses to questionnaires or group discussions / guided and reflective essays by the learners to determine the learners&rsquo / levels of understanding of the major tenets of the two thought systems and the relationship between the two worldviews and to determine the qualitative gain, if any, that the learners got from the intervention programme / observation schedules used by the researcher during participant observation of group discussions and during the lessons on lightning / an achievement test on lightning / field notes used by the researcher for memoing observations and reflections as the research process proceeded / informal and serendipitous sources of information. <span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The collected data were analysed, mostly, qualitatively. Frequencies, percentages and t-test values were used to express and analyse quantitative data. Aspects of several analytical frameworks that included Toulmin&rsquo / s Argumentation Pattern (TAP) [and its modified versions such as that of Leitao (2000) and that of Osborne et al (2004)] and Contiguity Argumentation Theory (CAT) were used to attach meaning to the collected data and to address the research questions.</span></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi / mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">The basic premise of this study was that when a learner is confronted with two contradictory explanations of the same phenomenon, there is cognitive dissonance in the learner as the learner tries to determine which of the two explanations is correct. An argumentation-based instructional intervention programme (ABIIP) was created for and used on and by the Grade 10 learners in order to attempt to ameliorate this cognitive conflict. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The purpose of this study was to determine the relative impact of that intervention programme on Grade 10 learners&rsquo / conceptions of lightning and thunder. The programme was designed to help learners to develop argumentative skills and use the acquired skills to negotiate and harmonise divergent and conflicting explanations of the nature of lightning and thunder that are propounded by different worldviews (Science and indigenous knowledge).</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The research design was primarily a case study of 16 Grade 10 learners of the Xhosa ethnic group at a high school in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The Xhosa people are a typical example of a people whose cultural values were undermined and whose voice was silenced by the colonisers and whose local knowledge has been repressed and replaced by forms of Western privileged knowledge and understandings but who remain, deeply and resolutely, steeped in their cultural values and practices, making them a classic example of a people who would battle to harmonise the indigenous and the scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The research instruments used were questionnaires which were administered to learners, educators, community leaders, indigenous knowledge holders and experts to solicit information on causes, dangers and prevention of lightning / individual and group activities as learners went through the lessons on both argumentation and on lightning / follow up interviews and discussions with learners individually or in groups to seek further clarification of the ideas the learners would have raised in their earlier responses to questionnaires or group discussions / guided and reflective essays by the learners to determine the learners&rsquo / levels of understanding of the major tenets of the two thought systems and the relationship between the two worldviews and to determine the qualitative gain, if any, that the learners got from the intervention programme / observation schedules used by the researcher during participant observation of group discussions and during the lessons on lightning / an achievement test on lightning / field notes used by the researcher for memoing observations and reflections as the research process proceeded / informal and serendipitous sources of information. <span style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family: &quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / mso-bidi-font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi">The collected data were analysed, mostly, qualitatively. Frequencies, percentages and t-test values were used to express and analyse quantitative data. Aspects of several analytical frameworks that included Toulmin&rsquo / s Argumentation Pattern (TAP) [and its modified versions such as that of Leitao (2000) and that of Osborne et al (2004)] and Contiguity Argumentation Theory (CAT) were used to attach meaning to the collected data and to address the research questions.</span></span></p>