M.Ed. / Selfregulering is sinoniem met akademiese sukses en onafhanklike leer. Selfgereguleerde leerders aanvaar verantwoordelikheid vir hul eie leer en vertoon ’n groter mate van dieper leer as leerders wat nie selfgereguleer is nie. Selfregulering word ook beskou as die blywendste en hoogs erkende uitkoms van leer. Opvoeders het ’n deurslaggewende rol om te speel in die voorbereiding van leerders om op hul eie te leer en in die voorsiening van ’n onderrigomgewing wat die gebruik van selfregulerende prosesse sal kweek. Ondersteuning wat in kursusse ingebou is, kan leerders se selfregulerende praktyke versterk en hulle help om onafhanklike leerders te word. Ongelukkig is selfregulering ’n moeilike onderriguitkoms om te behaal en baie leerders wat by hoëronderwysinstellings inskryf, beskik nie oor die nodige selfreguleringsvaardighede om die eise van hul studie te hanteer nie. Die literatuur het aangedui dat baie min studies uitgevoer is om te ontleed wat opvoeders doen om selfregulering in hul kursusse te ondersteun. Die doel van hierdie studie was om te bepaal in watter mate ondersteuning gebied word vir selfregulering in ’n meestersgraadkursus in rekenaargesteunde onderwys. Die studie het begin met ’n verkenning van die begrip “selfregulering”. Selfregulerende leerstrategieë en -prosesse wat met akademiese sukses en onafhanklike leer verband hou, is geïdentifiseer en vir die ontwikkeling van ’n waarnemingskedule gebruik. Hierdie waarnemingskedule is as die primêre instrument gebruik om die aanwesigheid of afwesigheid van ondersteuning vir selfregulering in die genoemde kursus te bepaal. Fokusgroep- en sleutelinformantonderhoude is gevoer om die leerders se persepsies van die kursus en hoe hierdie persepsies hul leer beïnvloed, te bepaal. Die onderhoude is as aanvullend by die gestruktureerde waarnemingskedule gebruik en is beskou as ’n waardevolle hulpmiddel om die bevindings van die waarnemingskedule te bevestig. Die bevindings van die studie toon duidelik waar ondersteuning vir selfregulering aanwesig is en waar dit steeds ontbreek. Die ingeboude ondersteuning in die kursus bied die leerders ruim geleentheid om die meeste selfregulerende leerstrategieë, maar nie almal nie, aktief te gebruik. Daar is verder vasgestel dat die leerders se verhoogde betrokkenheid by selfregulering oor die algemeen hul onafhanklikheid, akademiese prestasie en leeroordrag skyn te verbeter.

M.A. / A specific identity is not an inherent quality of human nature. Yet all humans have identities. The question then arises as to how identities are formed and what influences their formation. In this study it is asserted that identities are constructions and that, as such, they occur within a space and time. The particular interrelations and meanings that occur in a space and time result in the formation of a place. Place, then, influences the constructions of the identity. In this study the Tablīgh Jamā̉at (TJ), a movement that seeks to improve the practice of Islam amongst Muslims, was investigated to assess what influenced the construction of an identity amongst its members in Johannesburg. The Tablīgh Jamā̉at, which is the single largest Islamic movement in the world, originated in India in 1927 and was established in South Africa in the early 1960s. The movement has a large presence in the Muslim community of Johannesburg. The execution of activities related to the movement, the promotion and manipulation of the message and activities of the movement, as well as physical and material capabilities independent of the movement were found to influence the construction of the identity. These, together, have shaped the meaning, in a place, due to the manipulation of shared experience. However, there are also physical and material constraints that limit the further construction of identities. The reliance of the identity on factors that are not inherent to it poses a challenge for the development of theory regarding social identities. / Prof. Peter Alexander

This study is an investigation on the role of the School Governing Body (SGB) in macro planning of LSEN Hospital Schools. The literature review revealed that much has not yet been done pertaining to the involvement of parents in macro planning at the school level. For this research, qualitative research was conducted on educators, principals and parents who are members of the SGB at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital School and Johannesburg Hospital School. The researcher used interviews, notes taking and observation to collect data. The findings disclosed that most of the SGB members had no knowledge about section 20 status as laid down by SASA. They are not aware of their rights and limitations due to lack of professional training. The stakeholders involved in these schools, when doing macro planning, are the internal stakeholders only (the principals and educators). Based on the findings of this study, recommendations and guidelines have been provided to improve the involvement of parents in the school macro planning and management. / Prof. J.R. Debeila

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (in Music Research). Johannesburg, March 2016 / The thesis entitled Wherefore Musician? is a critical engagement with the experiences of musicians who were involved in dramatic theatre productions at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg between 2010 and 2014. The study is a narrative inquiry, which uncovers the lived experiences of musicians from their narration of select collaborative encounters. The narratives speak to integrated cross-disciplinary models of theatre making, where various signifiers and performance texts contribute towards a cohesive production. / MT2017

This research report examines the extent to which the economic and spatial practices of informal people can be classed as radical genda-setting towards an alternative city. In so doing the practices and perceptions of business owners, market traders and street traders in Yeoville are explored. To give greater context of what informal people are possibly pushing up against, state practice and policy are also considered. The discussion further draws on the nexus between politics and governance as well as between the state and capital on the making of contemporary cities. Social movement theory provides the initial basis to carry out the discussion. The interweaving theories of quiet encroachment (Bayat), insurgent citizenship (Holston) and subaltern urbanism (Roy) give the exploration greater depth.

South Africa has long been associated with racial and ethnic issues surrounding prejudice and discrimination and despite a move post-1994 to a democratic ‘rainbow nation’ society, the country has remained plagued by unequal power relations. One such instance of inequality relates to the marginalisation of migrants which has been realised through xenophobic attitudes and actions, most notably the violence that swept across the country in 2008. Several reasons have been suggested in an attempt to explain the cause of the violence, including claims that migrants are taking ‘our jobs and our women’, migrants are ‘illegal and criminal’ and bringing ‘disease and contamination’ with them from their countries of origin. Although widely accepted that many, if not all, of these beliefs are based on ignorance and hearsay, these extensive generalisations shape and reinforce prejudiced ideologies about migrant communities. It is thus only when confronted with evidence that challenges this dominant discourse, that South Africans are able to reconsider their views. Williams (2008) suggests that for many South Africans, Africa continues to be the ‘dark continent’ that is seen as an ominous, threatening force of which they have very little knowledge. For this reason, anti-immigrant sentiment in a South African context has traditionally been directed at African foreigners. In this study I examine the ways in which African migrants and migrant communities, as well as the overall processes of migration, are depicted by selected South African print media: City Press, Mail & Guardian and Sunday Times. Using a combined Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis approach, I investigate the following questions: How are migrants and the process of migration into South Africa represented by these established newspapers between 2006 and 2010? Are there any differences or similarities between these representations? In particular, what ideologies regarding migrants and migrant communities underlie these representations? My analysis focuses on the landscape of public discourse about migration with an exploration of the rise and fall of the terminologies used to categorise migrants and the social implications of these classifications. Additionally, I analyse the expansive occurrences of negative representations of migrants, particularly through the use of ‘othering’ pronouns ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and through the use of metaphorical language which largely depicts these individuals as en masse natural disasters. I conclude that these discursive elements play a crucial role in contributing to an overall xenophobic rhetoric. Despite subtle differences between the three newspapers which can be accounted for based on their political persuasions and agendas, it is surprising to note how aligned these publications are with regard to their portrayal of migrants. With a few exceptions, this representation positions these individuals as powerless and disenfranchised and maintains the status quo view of migrants as burdens on the South African economy and resources. Overall, the newspaper articles contribute to mainstream dominant discourse on migrants and migration with the underlying ideology that migrants are responsible for the hardships suffered by South African citizens. Thus, this study contributes significantly to existing bodies of research detailing discourse on migrants and emphasises the intrinsic links between language, ideology and society.

This thesis reports on the bonds that unify imagined communities (Anderson 1983) that are created in 40 letters prominently displayed on the opinions pages of the Daily Sun, a popular tabloid, and The Times, a daily offshoot of the mainstream national Sunday Times. An APPRAISAL analysis of these letters reveals how the imagined communities attempt to align their audiences around distinctive couplings of interpersonal and ideational meaning. Such couplings represent the bonds around which community identities are co-constructed through affiliation and are evidence of the shared feelings that unite the communities of readership. Inferences drawn from this APPRAISAL information allow for a comparison of the natures of the two communities in terms of how they view their agency and group cohesion. Central to the analysis and interpretation of the data is the letters’ evaluative prosody, traced in order to determine the polarity of readers’ stances over four weeks. Asymmetrical prosodies are construed as pointing to the validity of ‘linguistic ventriloquism’, a term whose definition is refined and used as a diagnostic for whether the newspapers use their readers’ letters to promote their own stances on controversial matters. Principal findings show that both communities affiliate around the value of education, and dissatisfaction with the country’s political leaders, however The Times’ readers are more individualistic than the Daily Sun’s community members, who are concerned with the wellbeing of the group. The analysis highlights limitations to the application of the APPRAISAL framework, the value of subjectivity in the analytical process, and adds a new dimension to South African media studies, as it provides linguistic insights into the construction of imagined communities of newspaper readership.

This study looks at the experiences of migrants accessing notions of justice at the Wits Law Clinic, the pro-bono public interest law clinic of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. This study explores the way migrants engage with public interest law in the light of an overwhelming adversarial and threatening experience of the law. The law in the form of state law and its powers embodied in law enforcers and petty bureaucrats is mainly used against them and confines them to a ‘state of bare life’. One could therefore expect that this compels migrants to keep their heads down and avoid any form of formalization, and instead reverting to a total reliance on informal survival strategies. This study however shows that migrants retain a strong faith in the law and draw a huge sense of hope from the services they receive from the Wits Law Clinic – even though the only action that is sometimes taking place is the endless writing of letters. But it appears that the reduction of the law to absolutely mundane bureaucratic activity still holds enough symbolic power of giving migrants a sense of moving closer towards the promise of justice, which the law also holds, even though it might be over and over deferred.

M.Com. / This study investigated the possibility of establishing a sustainable early childhood development centre in Orange Farm by means of a literature review and practical research. The main objective was to evaluate the current early childhood development situation of ‘Orange Farm Day & Nite Day Care Centre’ at Orange Farm, Stretford Extension 2, to understand what typifies early childhood development best practices by using an excellent early childhood development centre in Mondeor, ‘Top Kids’, as a comparable model. The research strategy was to interview key stakeholders pertinent to the delivery of this research’s objective. These were stakeholders who could define the needs of the target audience (community, teachers, parents, centre owners and children), in terms of early childhood development in order to identify challenges and best practices...

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This project seeks to explore the role of architecture in the design of the Home Affairs as a public government institution through establishing and revealing aspects of both multiple and national identity towards the users of the building (local and immigrant population). The architectural aim of this project is to redefine the regional office of Home Affairs in the inner-city of Johannesburg as a multi-national and cultural building which reveals dignity, integrity, diversity and citizenship. By rethinking the notion of the "public" and "private" realm, the aim is to begin to blur these thresholds through concepts of transparency between the receiver of the service and the service provider. With the transition from the apartheid rule to the current "democratic" society, architecture is constantly used by government to reinforce the concept and ideology of democracy through projects such as the Constitutional Court and the Apartheid Museum. Though the Home Affairs is a government institution, its connection to issues of identity involving both nationals and foreign nationals suggests an approach which acknowledges multiple identities in a cosmopolitan city such as Johannesburg. In recent years, some government buildings which were symbolic in the previous political regime have simply been revamped and re-appropriated (Freschi, 2006).