M.Ed. (Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis (M.A (Psychology))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2016 / Transformation initiatives in South African higher education institutions are informed by literature which has thus far explicated the high failure and attrition rates amongst Black university students with discourses asserting that the major contributing factors are disadvantage and language of origin. The current study endeavoured to investigate the learning histories of a group of high achieving Black female university students from socio- economically or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in order to inform current transformation initiatives at South African higher education institutions. Seven female students who had previously participated in an academic development programme in the faculty of humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Reaching for Excellent Achievement Programme (REAP), volunteered to participate in this study. Despite being second language students and coming from less advantaged backgrounds, these students achieved excellent academic marks and acceptance into various post- graduate programmes. Semi- structured interviews with an episodic narrative style were conducted. The method of data analysis found to be most appropriate for this study was thematic content analysis. The results revealed the importance of the influence of high school teachers on students’ perceptions of school and school subjects; the pace of adjusting to university; the significance of effective lecturing styles; the formation of an academic identity; acquiring academic literacy; and the importance of having social support (especially from university lecturers) for the successful academic performance of the participants in this study. This study suggests that perhaps there is more than individual effort that is required for academic success at university level. Further, it suggests that higher education institutions need to improve the lecturing styles of their lecturers, should ensure that all students are able to successfully adjust to the university environment early in their first year of study, should offer compulsory academic literacy courses to all first year students, and should consider providing all students with mentors who are university personnel. / MT2017

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Any enquiry follows some incident which has prompted the question that leads to the enquiry. This study was prompted by a review of the 1974 first year examination results at the University of Fort Hare. The average percentage pass rate for that year was 59.3%. The cynic may remark that this is no different to the first year pass rate at white South African universities (cf. Erens and Louw, 1978), but when it is realised that students entering Fort Hare, or any other black university for that matter, are a highly select group, these figures have more Impact. The consequences of failure in terms of the wastage of human potential are immense (cf. Auerbach, 1977) but are more critical when this occurs, as It does, "... in a society which is competitive rather than co-operative, where people are for ever being classified according to what they have rather than that they can contribute and where competition plus classification inevitably breeds fears." Bligh (1978). A review of the first year examination results for the five years from 1971 revealed an average pass rate of 55.5% and for 1976, 1977 and 1978 a marked decline to 39.32%. For the earlier period, Downing (1977) found that 19.69% of students completed their degree courses In the minimum number of years. For the latter period (1976 to 1978) this has dropped to 16.3%, which, with the figure for the earlier period, suggests that whilst the failure rate may be highest at the end of the first year, in subsequent years it is also high. In this respect Fort Hare differs from white universities where about 75% of students complete their degrees in minimum time (cf. Erens and Louw, 1978)

Master's degree in Research Psychology Research report, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016. / This study explored the stories of South African black female postgraduates, in particular, focusing on family dynamics in their childhoods and the role these relationships played in their academic development. South African higher education is a site of contestations as access opens up for students previously excluded from universities. However access and success continue to be racialized and gendered hence black women are unevenly represented in higher education particularly at postgraduate level. This study brings forth stories of women who have succeeded in this context, exploring questions of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1994).Thematic analysis highlights predominant themes across the narratives of these women. There is a very strong thread across the narratives that these women feel that their academic achievement is primarily due to hard work and a ‘natural’ or intrinsic intellectual talent that was recognised by their families and teachers from a young age. Despite the emphasis on individual aptitude, the findings also highlight participants’ recognition of the value of support from family in their schooling and even continuing into their lives as young adult postgraduate students. The nature of family dynamics in these women’s childhood and adult lives was revealed, including, the friendship that characterises daughter-mother relationships, the absence of fathers, and the role of grandmothers and other members of the extended family and community networks . It is worth noting that all participants talk of the sudden movement from public township schools to private or Model C schools that disrupts their narratives of schooling. The lack of reading in the childhood homes of some of these women contradicts the common assumption that a reading home environment is vital for the development of the appropriate cultural capital necessary for academic success. Instead, it is evident that these multigenerational families provide a range of support that allows learning to take place, including emotional and financial support, providing critical social capital. / GR2017

This research project explored how young women involved in political organizations make sense of apartheid history and how they appropriate that history into their identities. Nine black women students who were involved in political organizations were interviewed from the University of Witswatersrand. The women that were chosen participated in a narrative style interview about their lives and the history of apartheid. The data were then analyzed using narrative thematic analysis and organised in the temporal zones of past, present and future. The analysis revealed the complexities of race, class and gender and how these are embodied, enacted and made sense of in the construction and reconstruction of the identities of these young women. In imagining and reflecting on the apartheid past, race was understood through both distant, public narratives and through personal and intimate family narratives. Gendered roles or positions were talked about in reference to three thematic symbols of women as nurturers, iconic wives and heroes. In progression from the apartheid past and its particular, separated and structured understanding of race and gender, the journey into the present and future, reflects increasingly complex, dynamic and multilayered understandings. In particular, the conflation of race and class under apartheid is beginning to fragment and these young women are thinking through their positionality in terms of personal class mobility and simultaneous identification as black and committed to the continuation of race struggles. It is also very clear that the question of gender equality is now very prominent for these young women as they navigate their roles in political leadership in the present and envisage themselves in the future.

This study attempts to explore, theoretically and empirically, the experience of being black in a predominantly white university. It is more specifically concerned with perceived interaction between members of different cultural and ethnic groups, namely, between black and white. Using the existential-phenomenological method the experience of seven subjects, both male and female, were explicated. This explication revealed that black students become aware of their "difference" during interaction with members of the dominant white group. The black students perceive the behaviour of the white-dominant group to be racist and this creates a great deal of latent hostility, anger, and resentment. It is suggested that a programme be developed to diffuse the conflict situation during intergroup interaction at university.

M.A. (Applied Linguistics) / In chapter 1 it is stated that the problem of academic underachievement should be addressed in a scientific manner. It is postulated that a responsible approach would be to identify the needs of the learners in question i.e. students who follow graduate courses in Afrikaans. In the second chapter it is shown that a learner-centred approach dictates a needs analysis. Furthermore the influence of attitudes and motivation on second language study is discussed. Chapter 3 gives a short historical overview of the development of language teaching with some emphasis on the communicative approach. The empirical data is presented and discussed in chapter 4. In the last chapter conclusions are drawn and some recommendations are made. The aim of the study is to identify the needs of students of Afrikaans at Vista University. It is accepted that the identification of the needs of the learners is instrumental in the approach of the aforementioned problem. The information was gleaned by an opinion survey which was completed by all third year students of Afrikaans. The data revealed that almost all students aim to teach Afrikaans to black children and they expect the courses to equip them for that. They also want to improve their communicative ability in Afrikaans. They are well . motivated(integrated motivation) to reach their goals. The learners are positive about the courses but they feel, however, that the courses are too" technicaI" and that they often find it difficult to identify with the "view of 1ife" portrayed in the 1iterature texts.

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

This study investigates language varieties, non-verbal behaviour and language attitudes as cultural barriers which inhibit successful communication between Blacks and Indians at Durban Institute of Technology. The investigation reveals that Indians and Blacks often misunderstand each other. Sometimes these groups feel misunderstood because they use different varieties of English. To compensate for these differences, participants use non-verbal strategies. However, non-verbal behaviour is culturally determined and people tend to transfer it to intercultural situations. One finds that this transfer leads to miscommunication and negative stereotypes. Furthermore, non verbal behaviour which does not meet the politeness criteria leads to negative attitudes and strained relations amongst peers and supervisors. The study suggests these solutions: the introduction of intercultural awareness campaigns for all employees and Zulu conversational skills for all Indians. For the whole South African community, the spirit of ubuntu should be cultivated between all racial groups to foster mutual respect. / Sociolinguistics / M.A.