published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

This thesis aims to answer the question: How is history knowledge contextualised into pedagogic communication? Empirically, it takes place at a specific point in the curriculum change process in South Africa, namely the period when the new curriculum for the Further Education and Training (FET) band was implemented in Grade 10 classrooms in 2006. The study is theoretically informed by a sociological lens and is specifically informed by the theories of Basil Bernstein, particularly his concepts of the pedagogic device, pedagogic discourse, pedagogic practice and vertical and horizontal knowledge structures. It is premised on the assumption that the official policy message changes and recontextualises as it moves across the levels of the pedagogic device. It tracks the recontextualisation of the history curriculum from the writers of the curriculum document to the actual document itself, to the training of teachers and the writing of textbooks and finally to three Grade 10 classrooms where the curriculum was implemented in 2006. The empirical work takes the form of a case study of the FET history curriculum. Data were collected from a range of different participants at different levels of the pedagogic device. It was not possible to interrogate all the sets of data with the same level of detail. As one moves up and down and pedagogic device, certain things come into focus, while other things move out of focus. Data were collected through interviews with the writers of the history curriculum, with publishers and writers of selected Grade 10 history textbooks and through participant observation of a workshop held by the provincial education department to induct teachers in the requirements of the new FET history curriculum. Data were collected in the Grade 10 history classrooms of three secondary schools in 2005 and 2006. The school fieldwork comprised video recording five consecutive lessons (ten lessons over two years) in each of the three Grade 10 classrooms, interviewing the history teachers and selected learners, collecting the test papers and assignment tasks and assessment portfolios from selected learners. The study uses the pedagogic device as both a theoretical tool, and a literary device for the organization of the thesis. Within the field of production, the study examines what is the discipline of history from the perspective of historians and of the sociologists of knowledge. History is a horizontal knowledge structure that finds its specialisation in its procedures. However, an historical gaze demands both a substantive knowledge base and the specialised procedures of the discipline. Within the Official Recontextualising Field, the study examines the history curriculum document and the writing of this document. The NCS presents knowledge in a more integrated way. The knowledge is structured using key historical themes such as power alignments, human rights, issues of civil society and globalisation. There is a move away from a Eurocentric position to a focus on Africa in the world. Pedagogically, the focus is on learning doing history, through engaging with sources. Within the Pedagogic Recontextualising Field, the major focus of the teacher training workshop was on working with the outcomes and assessment standards within the ‘history-as-enquiry’ framework. Textbook writers and publishers work closely with the DoE Guidelines and focus on covering the correct content and the learning outcomes and assessment standards. The three teachers within the field of reproduction taught and interpreted the curriculum in different ways, but the nature of the testing (focused primarily on sources) was similar as there are strong DoE guidelines in this regard. For Bernstein, evaluation condenses the meaning of the whole pedagogic device. This is even more so when the curriculum is outcomes-based. The assessment tasks that Grade 10 learners in this study were required to do had the appearance of being source-based, but they seldom required learners to think like historians, nor did they require them to have a substantial and a coherent knowledge base. The FET history curriculum is in danger of losing its substantive knowledge dimension as the procedural dimension, buoyed up by the overwhelming logic of outcomes-based education and the strongly externally framed Departmental assessment regulations, becomes paramount. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

The aim of this study is to investigate the level of awareness of history teachers in public secondary schools in Nairobi, Kenya, of the benefits of library use for the curriculum. The availability of school libraries in public secondary schools in Nairobi provided a context for this investigation into teacher library use. In order to establish if libraries are used effectively, or used at all, for curriculum purposes, literature on this was searched and little came from Nairobi or even Kenya. This lack of information in this area formed a justification for investigation because libraries exist in many public schools in Nairobi and they have the potential to have a positive influence. A survey of literature internationally illustrates the degree of the serious attention both history as a discipline, and library and the curriculum receive. History is given attention because of its role in both maintaining and revolutionising order in a country. In the case of resource-based learning, many countries have shifted to a child-centred approach. This requires much more use of libraries than traditional teaching methods. The evaluation of teacher and librarian views was undertaken by means of a survey. In the survey questionnaires were used. The population was that provided by the Director of Education in Nairobi and a corresponding list of schools where teachers and librarians were employed is given. The findings of the survey established the level of awareness of history teachers to resource based education that took account of library-curriculum partnership. The study established the need for greater attention towards school libraries in the allocation of budgets, building resources that are needed, and management. Staff development of both teachers and librarians was suggested in order to promote resource-based education. To achieve this, a written policy on the management of school libraries is suggested. / Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

This study was prompted by the researcher’s concern that the gender equity imperative within the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, and within national curriculum policy in South Africa is being sidelined in school History teaching for various reasons, the most significant of which is argued to be lack of awareness of the constitutive nature of discourse within language. The main aim of the study is to investigate whether a feminist post-structuralist approach to History teaching, which focuses on multiple perspectives and open interpretation, within the framework of six key aspects of critical media education, can open up space for female voices of the past and present in order to reconstruct realist historical narratives. The literature review reflects research relating to theories which have been seminal in the development of feminist post-structuralism. The qualitative research design entails a data collection instrument which focuses on denotative and connotative analysis of textual samples selected from Grade 10 schools History textbooks used for this investigation. Data collection relates to content analysis, narrative theory, textually-oriented discourse analysis, and gender-biased language with regard to images and print. To establish the category into which each textual sample falls, individual data counts have been undertaken. A detailed analysis process reveals that all nine of the textual samples are of the conforming type which do not question patriarchal gender construction.The study offers suggestions regarding the implementation of feminist post-structuralist strategies within the context of Grade 10 outcomes-based History teaching, which is compliant with South Africa’s national curriculum policy. Notwithstanding the gaze upon the problematising of discursive gender representation in Grade 10 History teaching resources used in South African public schools, this study argues that the results have wide application across grades, levels, learning areas and subjects which are part of South Africa’s national curriculum. The researcher therefore suggests that this study offers a positive contribution to equitable gender relations in the History classroom, in education generally, and in South Africa as a whole. / Didactics / D. Ed.

Implicit in the call for educational reform in the teaching of social studies has been the suggestion that pursuing inquiry-based principles will lead to improvement in student achievement. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two types of pedagogy: traditional and inquiry-based upon student achievement as measured by a standards-based, state administered examination. Second, this study examined the relationship between the treatment teachers' level of implementation and student achievement. A nonequivalent control group posttest and experimental design was used in this study. Subjects involved in this study include 84 secondary American history teachers and their respective students from a large urban public school district in Texas. The sample consisted of two groups, one taught by traditional/didactic instruction (n=48) and the other taught by inquiry-based pedagogy (n=36). Data for this study were collected using a classroom observation protocol based upon the level of use rubric developed by the concerns-based adoption model. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) (p<.05) was used to measure the effects of inquiry-based instruction and traditional pedagogy on student achievement. Student achievement results were measured by the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for American history, grades 8 and 11. The study found that mean scores of the Grade 8 History Alive! group were significantly higher than the scores of the control group, but not for the Grade 11 History Alive! group. However, a comparison of mean scores by teachers' level-of-use suggested that the more faithful the teacher in designing standards-based lessons and delivering them through inquiry, the greater retention of American history student's knowledge about the subject.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate certain phases of the use of motion pictures in the teaching of American history in the secondary schools of Dallas, Texas.

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Cette étude a pour but d’analyser les pratiques d’enseignement de l’histoire dans les écoles secondaires de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) en rapport avec le nouveau programme d’application à partir de septembre 2005. En effet, le cours d’histoire qui constitue une matière stratégique et représente un enjeu important à l’école secondaire, a échoué, pendant plusieurs décennies (de 1962 à 2005), à l’essentiel de la mission qu’il est censé remplir à ce niveau de la scolarité en RDC. Ce constat d’échec, plus net et plus évident que pour toutes les autres matières, était surtout imputable au contenu des matières jugé européocentrique et inadapté, ainsi qu’aux manuels totalement dépassés sur tous les plans (conception, objectifs …). Les critiques à l’endroit de cette discipline touchaient également à la méthodologie car l’enseignement de l’histoire est, probablement, plus que toute autre discipline, susceptible de s’adapter constamment. Cette adaptation est requise pour le contenu de l’histoire scolaire ainsi que pour la façon de l’enseigner.<p>Mais, si le nouveau programme (de 2005) a «décolonisé» le contenu des matières, les pratiques de terrain semblent encore immuables !Qu’est ce qui peut expliquer cet immobilisme ?Pour tenter de répondre à cette question, cette thèse procède par une double démarche, théorique et empirique. La démarche théorique qui fait l’objet de la première partie, brosse la littérature sur notre problématique, donne un aperçu de l’histoire de l’enseignement et de l’enseignement de l’histoire en RDC, aborde le savoir conceptuel de l’enseignant d’histoire et les pratiques d’enseignement et enfin, traite de la motivation des élèves ainsi que du matériel didactique. Quant à la deuxième partie consacrée à la démarche empirique, elle est centrée sur l’approche méthodologique de la recherche, l’analyse et l’interprétation des résultats quantitatifs et qualitatifs.<p>L’analyse des réponses aux questions administrées auprès de notre échantillon, composé d’une part de 64 enseignants et, d’autre part, de 600 élèves ainsi que l’analyse des observations de 10 classes d’histoire et des interviews avec les enseignants des classes visitées ont permis d’appréhender l’application du nouveau programme et les autres réalités de terrain.<p>En somme, les résultats de cette étude montrent que les enseignants dispensant le cours d’histoire en 5e et 6e secondaires, utilisent, presque tous, les modes transmissifs et ignorent la pédagogie active ou les modes actifs proposés par le nouveau programme d’histoire ;ce qui ne motive pas, sans doute, les élèves à ce cours. Autrement dit, malgré leur haute qualification, leur longue expérience dans l’enseignement et le changement de contenu, ces enseignants d’histoire ne pratiquent pas la pédagogie active ou les modes actifs. On semble être donc loin de la « décolonisation », tant souhaitée, des pratiques en classe d’histoire en RDC. <p>Au regard de ce qui précède, nous pensons que pour mieux enseigner l’histoire, les enseignants congolais devraient avoir d’autres ambitions qu’une simple transmission des connaissances (savoirs) destinées à être simplement enregistrées et restituées par les élèves lors des interrogations et examens. Le rôle fondamental du cours d’histoire étant d’informer et de former, le souci constant qui devrait animer les enseignants est de susciter et de renouveler l’intérêt des élèves, de les aider à construire leurs savoirs, pour qu’ils deviennent des vrais acteurs de la société de demain. Car, nous estimons que la reconstruction d’un pays, comme la RDC, passe aussi par la reconstitution et la sauvegarde de la mémoire collective et du patrimoine culturel, tâches qui relèvent du domaine de l’enseignement de l’histoire. / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation examines the changing perceptions which black history educators and learners have held toward secondary school history education from 1948 to 2008. The province of Mpumalanga is focused upon, although the perceptions held about history education by black secondary school educators and learners within the wider historical context of South Africa is also examined. It is argued that while the history education offered to black learners in South Africa secondary schools during the apartheid era was unpopular largely due to its pro-government subject matter, post-apartheid secondary school education is in danger of becoming increasingly marginalized within the school curriculum as it cannot successfully compete with a modern, technological and materialistically orientated society. / History / M.A. (History)

This dissertation examines the changing perceptions which black history educators and learners have held toward secondary school history education from 1948 to 2008. The province of Mpumalanga is focused upon, although the perceptions held about history education by black secondary school educators and learners within the wider historical context of South Africa is also examined. It is argued that while the history education offered to black learners in South Africa secondary schools during the apartheid era was unpopular largely due to its pro-government subject matter, post-apartheid secondary school education is in danger of becoming increasingly marginalized within the school curriculum as it cannot successfully compete with a modern, technological and materialistically orientated society. / History / M.A. (History)