The enjoyment of any form of literature presupposes, in the reader, an understanding of the subject matter and a fundamental inclination to identify with the characters, to empathize with them and to appreciate varying perspectives. It follows that the choice of text is an important consideration especially, when the reader is not reading in the mother tongue. The choice of novel prescribed by the DET for Second Language, non-White, non-English-speaking, Ciskeian pupils poses many problems which lead to poor examination results. The increasing unpopularity of English Literature among Ciskeian pupils and teachers appears to stem largely from the predominance of works selected from the Great Tradition. To determine how far the choice of texts is responsible for the lack of success of literature teaching in Ciskei is the aim of this investigation. The DET syllabus for Black schools and the set books prescribed for Stds. 9 and 10 between 1980 and 1990 are examined to expose their Euro-centric focus. The effects of the DET examinations on literature study in Ciskei are also considered to show how examinations complicate the situation further. The aims of teaching literature to Second Language pupils are reviewed. Literary merit, relevance, aesthetic value and scope for moral seriousness, skill development are suggested as criteria suitable for an appropriate choice of literary texts for Second Language pupils. A comparative study of the prescribed novel, Silas Marner and an alternative African novel in English, Things Fall Apart has been attempted to find out whether Things Fall Apart is of equal literary value to Silas Marner and, perhaps, more relevant than Silas Marner to the experience of Black pupils. Six teachers have been interviewed for their opinions of the books prescribed. A miniature survey also has been conducted among pupils of Stds. 9 and 10 from selected schools to verify general attitudes to the study of literature. The findings indicate a dire need to make the syllabus more flexible and more open to include good African writing in English, such as Things Fall Apart.

This thesis reports on a critical, ethnographic investigation into the reading practices of a group of 14 foundation year students at Rhodes University in 2002. The university had identified all the student-participants as 'underprepared' for university learning: they were from poor, socio-economic backgrounds, used English as an additional language, and had been educated in township or rural schools. Using the Socio-cultural model of literacy (Heath, 1984; Gee, 1990 & Street, 1993), the study explores the culturally-shaped attitudes and assumptions about reading that the students brought with them into a tertiary learning context from their homes, communities and schools. It reports on their subsequent efforts to become academic readers in the disciplinary context of History. Framing Theory (Reid and MacLachlan, 1994) was employed to analyse the kinds of matches and mismatches that arose between the students' frames about the nature and purpose of reading, and those implicitly accepted as normative by teachers in the History department. It accounts for the students' difficulties in achieving epistemological access in terms of a conflict of frames: both the students and their teachers usually failed to recognise each others' constructions about the nature and purpose of 'reading for a degree'. The study'S critical purpose required that its potential for generating emancipatory consequences needed to be investigated. Thus the study reports on how both sets of participants began to reframe their understanding of academic reading, by describing the ways in which they reflected on the findings in the final stages of the research process. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

M.Ed. (Linguistics and Literary Science) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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Since the 1980s, selective college admissions has become increasingly competitive. In 2021, for example, Harvard admitted a record-low 3.4 percent of applicants, compared to 18 percent in 1990. Trends at selective public institutions are similar. Concurrently, the role of race in admissions has evolved, as legal challenges, from Regents of the University of California v. Bakke onward, have limited the scope of affirmative action policies. The consideration of race in admissions, once intended to repair historical racial injustices, is now justified by the educational benefits of diversity. The same Supreme Court decisions also promoted the use of holistic review in admissions. These trends have collided in the latest legal challenges to affirmative action policies, which have mobilized Asian Americans as plaintiffs, accusing highly-selective schools of discrimination. Amidst this competitive and contested landscape, the private college consulting industry has grown exponentially. One trade association estimates that the number of independent educational consultants (IECs) in the United States quintupled between 2005 and 2015. Hired primarily by middle- and upper-class families, IECs occupy a unique position. They work intensively one-on-one with students to help manage a complicated process, while also maintaining ties to schools and colleges. They therefore serve as an analytical lens for understanding how broader trends in admissions affect students on the ground. Drawing on research on culture and educational inequality, the history of race in college admissions, and moral boundary-making, I ask how IECs help clients interpret elements of holistic review; how IECs respond to perceived discrimination and questions of racial diversity; and how participants in a system viewed as unequal draw moral boundaries around their work. Through interviews with 50 IECs in New York and California, I first show that IECs’ work makes the processes by which students successfully apply to colleges explicit. In doing so, they shine a light on what I call shadow criteria, or the unstated set of criteria that underlie the official criteria by which colleges judge applicants. Authenticity is one shadow criterion that requires students to translate their existing cultural capital into an application that is attractive to admissions officers – a process that, as I will show, is subject to class-based considerations. Second, IECs view White, Asian American, and underrepresented minority (i.e., Black, Latinx, and Indigenous) students as having different concerns about racial diversity and discrimination, and advise students accordingly. However, addressing these concerns at the individual level can reinforce colleges’ racialized admissions systems and reify stereotypes. Third, the majority of respondents view the overall admissions system either as flawed, or at best with ambivalence. Respondents draw moral boundaries between themselves and bad actors in the profession, legitimating their work and justifying it morally. Through the lens of the independent educational consultant, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of how actors within the college admissions ecosystem respond to competitive pressures. It also provides a greater qualitative understanding of how the growing field of private educational consulting operates.

Includes bibliography. / The thesis is an exploratory and primarily empirical study with the objective to construct a detailed chronology of the events of the 1985 school crisis particularly in African schools in the Western Cape and to reflect on the relationship between the school crisis and the organic crisis in South Africa and the Western Cape in particular. The data for the thesis were derived from primary and secondary documentary sources and in-depth interview material. A total of 51 interviewees were selected principally on the basis of the specific role they played particularly within the Department of Education and Training institutions as well as in community, political, workers', parents', teachers' and student organisations during the 1985 school crisis in the Western cape. Interviews were open-ended with a semi-structured interview schedule which consisted of topical headings. The thesis's theoretical framework was informed by Gramsci's Marxism am the key concepts employed in the analysis included Gramsci's notions of hegemony and organic crisis as well as Freire's concept of conscientisation. Utilising Gramsci's Marxism, the historical transformations in economic, political and ideological spheres which affected the development of student struggles and the crisis in the Department of Education and Training schools in 1985 were examined. Chapter 1 deals with .the 'Total strategy' as a form of state "formative action" to overcome the general crisis. It also documents in chronological order the main events of the school boycotts and both political and economic struggles on a national level from 1953 to 1984 and early 1985 in order to provide a sound background for the 1985 school crisis in the Western Cape. Chapter 2 which is offered as an empirical contribution to sociology of education covers a series of complex events and processes which constituted the core of the 1985 school crisis in the Western Cape in a chronological order. In the conclusion, Gramsci's concepts of 'hegemony' and 'organic crisis' supplemented by Freire's notion of conscientisation were directly utilised to analyse the slogan 'People's education for people's power'. One crucial observation explicit in the thesis am expressed through verbatim interview extracts was that the school crisis could only be resolved when the apartheid capitalist system in its entirety has been abolished.

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This study entails a critical investigation into the issue and trends that shaped Black perspectives on education in South Africa in the period between 1652 and 1993. A theoretical-philosophical exposition is presented to establish the fundamental characteristics of education and therefore characteristics valid for every human being under any circumstances at any time. These characteristics were used to eventually appraise the issues and trends underlying the shaping of Black perspectives on education in South Africa. This study has revealed that the shaping of Black perspectives on education in South Africa goes hand in hand with the growing realization among Blacks that education is not merely a political issue but also deeply imbedded in the interconnectedness and/or differences between social realities such as the church, the school itself, teachers' associations, the news media et cetera. This should be accounted for by every citizen in a responsible way. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (History of Education)

This study entails a critical investigation into the issue and trends that shaped Black perspectives on education in South Africa in the period between 1652 and 1993. A theoretical-philosophical exposition is presented to establish the fundamental characteristics of education and therefore characteristics valid for every human being under any circumstances at any time. These characteristics were used to eventually appraise the issues and trends underlying the shaping of Black perspectives on education in South Africa. This study has revealed that the shaping of Black perspectives on education in South Africa goes hand in hand with the growing realization among Blacks that education is not merely a political issue but also deeply imbedded in the interconnectedness and/or differences between social realities such as the church, the school itself, teachers' associations, the news media et cetera. This should be accounted for by every citizen in a responsible way. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (History of Education)