The last decade has seen enormous transformation in public schools in South Africa. One of the greatest changes is the increase in the diversity in the classroom. Since 2000, education policies emphasize the development of quality education in inclusive settings meeting the needs of all learners. The concept of inclusive education places emphasis on changing the system rather than the child, thereby requiring transformation of traditional approaches to teaching and learning. The factor that has the greatest impact on diversity is the movement towards including learners experiencing barriers to learning and development in the general education classroom in mainstream settings. This study is an attempt to explore and describe the experiences of grade 6 learners, particularly with reading difficulties, and the challenges faced by them in being included in the inclusive classrooms. A qualitative approach was employed in conducting this research. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. The data was obtained by means of unstructured interviews from individual learners. The recorded interviews were then transcribed and analyzed. The findings indicate that learners encountered negative and positive experiences and that it is important to listen to the often 'hidden' voices of learners experiencing barriers to learning and development. Therefore it is important for both educators and all learners to value differences in an inclusive classroom in order to accept and promote learning for the learners with barriers to learning and development. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Attachment research overlaps with many fields within psychology and is a highly under researched topic in South Africa. This study examined the relationship between the attachment style of Grade 1 learners and their socio-emotional behaviour. The following hypothesis was examined: Grade 1 learners who are securely attached display more age-appropriate socio-emotional behaviors than their counterparts who are not securely attached. The aims of the research were to: i.) describe mothers' perceptions of their children's attachment styles; ii.) investigate children's perceptions of their relationship with their primary caregiver and, iii.) describe the nature of the relationship between attachment style and certain aspects of socio-emotional behaviour in young children. In order to meet the above aims, the researcher constructed the Childhood Attachment Style Questionnaire (CASQ). In addition to the CASQ, the Preliminary Screening Checklist (PSCL), the Child Behaviour Scale (CBS) and the Kinetic Family Drawing test (KFD) were used to achieve the aims of the study. The sample consisted of 100 subjects who had met the criteria for participation in the study. Statistical and qualitative analyses of the data partially confirmed the hypothesis that secure Grade 1 learners were more likely to display age-appropriate socio-emotional behaviour as opposed to their insecure counterparts. Based on the findings of the study, various recommendations are made which have widespread relevance to the issues of behaviour problems, custody disputes and HIV/AIDS. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

The National Research Foundation has directed research to obtain information about learners who are entering the FET phase of education and have completed nine years of Outcomes Based Education. This study aims to ascertain whether learners (in the micro-context of English Home Language - Grade 10) are performing according to the Assessment Standards stipulated in the NCS 2003 and whether they are demonstrating control of the recognition and realisation rules as discussed by Bernstein that apply to poetic analysis. The learners' personal dispositions toward teaching and learning at a city school in Pietermaritzburg have been analysed to find out if there is any correlation between their personal dispositions and their control of the recognition and realisation rules. The project is a case study and the approach is interpretive. Bernstein's theory forms the framework from which the model was structured and analysed. Instruments were developed to measure the degree of control of recognition and realisation demonstrated by ten, Grade 10 English Home Language learners. These learners also completed questionnaires and in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the dispositions of the learners. Results from the recognition and realisation tasks (mainly qualitative with some quantitative support) were analysed and correlated with the interpretation of the findings from the interviews and questionnaires. It is hoped that the conclusions from this research will provide insight into how these specific learners, who have only experienced Outcomes Based Education, will perform in the FET phase of education. It is further hoped that the findings may shed some light into the process of social transformation in South Africa and how, if given the opportunity to do so, learners develop mastery of the elaborated code that enables them to function successfully in society. In the words of Zonke (a learner in the study), how a learner must 'get that light that shows them the way'. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, [2007].

Recently, in the South African and the international context, teacher identity investigations have dominated the landscape of transformation in education, in an attempt to understand the relationship between teachers’ identities and their practice of teaching. However the dearth of research on deaf education and D/deaf teachers has created a gap in our comprehensive understanding and this study has aimed to address this void and advance existing theory. This project focused individually and collectively on five Deaf teachers and how they experienced their deafness in widely differing circumstances at various stages in their lives from childhood to adulthood. The project explored firstly, how the participants constructed their identities as people living with deafness; how they understood and interpreted their lives in the context of deafness. The second component of the investigation addressed how they negotiated their deafness related identities in their practice as teachers. My purpose was to know through their personal stories how they have come to explain and know themselves as Deaf persons, how deafness gives character to their lives and how this image guides their practice as teachers. The participants, who teach in schools for D/deaf learners in KwaZulu-Natal, were drawn from a larger cohort of Deaf teachers that qualified from a three-year pilot teacher education programme designed to train D/deaf teachers to teach D/deaf learners. At the time of the research, participants were in their eighth year of teaching. Through unstructured interviews, conducted via the medium of South African Sign Language, data was obtained in the form of narratives of participants’ lives which were captured in three seamless phases that included their childhood, schooling and their experiences as teachers. The signed data was transcribed into written English text. The written text which was collaborated by participants, was used for the analysis This study has examined their individual life stories and the construction of their identities as D/deaf persons, against the backdrop of proclaimed Deaf cultural identity, where difference rather than disability is highlighted. In the analysis I argue from a post-structural perspective that the participants’ claim to positioning in either Deaf or deaf or hearing discourses is not fixed and rigid. Instead positioning overlaps fluidly and continuously between the three discourses with participants taking on character and conventions from Deaf, deaf and hearing discourses. They transition consciously or unconsciously between the systems and create multiple and contradictory identities. In addition I argue that cohesiveness and coherence in the conceptualization of a Deaf cultural community and Deaf identity is non-existent, when viewed from a post-structural lens. The institutional resources that shape their teacher identity constructions include colleagues, learners, the parent community, the curriculum, and other micro-interactions. The institutional resources intersect with biographical resources of race, religion, gender, social class, childhood and later experiences, relationships, recollections, role-models and other signifiers. A multitude of intersections and permutations emerge, to create an inexhaustible inventory of teacher positions embedded in the general discourse of teaching and discoursed by teaching. In both instances, that is, as D/deaf person and as D/deaf teacher, the school is the site that instantiated the D/deaf identity and the teacher identity and the cultural discourses that prevail in schools are the sites of resistance, acceptance and negotiation of identities. Here identity emerges in the space where subjectivities intersect with narratives of social, cultural and political discourses. This research which draws from the Deaf educators’ personal and professional experiences and is articulated through the medium of South African Sign Language, hopes to bring the educators’ histories together, and through these reflect on their lives, visualizing new possibilities for understanding deafness in an educational and cultural context. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

This is an empirical study of how teachers in the Maths Centre for Primary Teachers project use instructional materials in teaching mathematics in junior primary schools. The key question of the study is whether teachers use instructional materials in ways that promote quality education. Instead of being guided by the "school effectiveness" paradigm, one which is based on a production function model, this study adopts an approach used in "quality education" research which argues that it is not simply the availability of instructional materials, but the effective use of instructional materials that determines quality instruction, and in turn quality education. Huberman's model of a teacher as an independent artisan describes the role of a teacher I envision as one that is likely to bring about improvements in the quality of instruction. The approach adopted in Huberman's model emphasises teacher-centred methods. (Teacher-centred does not mean "not child-centred", but simply focuses on what role the teacher needs to play). In this study it was found that, with regards to certain aspects, teachers used instructional materials in ways that were appropriate and contributing to improvements in the quality of education. Teachers valued MCPT materials for their power to illustrate and teach mathematical concepts. Teachers applied methodologies that were informed by a constructivist theory of learning, within a classroom environment conducive for this. However, teachers hardly prepared and used their own materials, and they presented MCPT materials in ways that deprived them of opportunities for teacher development in curriculum management. It is argued, therefore, that there is need for advanced training of teachers on the use of instructional materials - training that enables teachers to use materials in ways that fit in with their design of classroom curriculum. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, 1995.

Tertiary institutions, in striving towards achieving academic excellence, have realised the need for the professional development of human resources. Staff development thus now features in most institutions' strategic plans. In this study, which has as its context the M L Sultan Technikon, an attempt was made to develop and implement an evaluation programme for academic staff to determine relevant staff needs. Adopting a 'grass-roots' approach to staff evaluation, the evaluation programme was initiated and launched by the Staff Development Unit. Phase 1 of the programme was experimental and voluntary and consisted of student-feedback, a self-evaluation form and a head's evaluation form. Staff response to the programme and their input to a revised evaluation programme occurred as a result of meetings with staff, the administration of feedback questionnaires and a survey of all heads of department. One of the goals of the evaluation programme was to contribute to a relevant staff development programme based on academic staff needs, generated as a result of engaging in the self-evaluation, resulting in needs as indicated in staff's personal development plans. Although the evaluation programme was developed with formative intentions, it has been adapted by the Management for summative purposes, the outcomes of which are also focused upon in the study. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1991.

The present study focuses on the investigation of the influence of teaching facilities and teacher training on the attitudes of educators towards the implementation of inclusive education. As a result of South Africa's particular history of inequalities and discrimination, and the context recent rapid social changes, most schools do not even have basic resources and are experiencing a serious breakdown in the culture of learning. These factors are viewed as part of the major challenges to educators and the policy of inclusion. If these factors are not addressed, they act as major barriers to learning and development, thereby resulting in the exclusion of many learners. The right of all learners to basic education is underwritten by the policy of inclusive education. Attainment of an educational right, therefore, focuses on the need to ensure that all learners, including learners with special educational needs (LSEN), are able to access equitable educational opportunities that will allow them to achieve to their potential. Inclusive education constitutes a challenge to the education system as a whole and in particular to educators in mainstream classrooms. The educators in South African schools are currently being expected to make major changes in the way they understand teaching and learning in the process of adapting to an entirely new curriculum. Teachers are expected to have the knowledge and skills to accommodate a range of diversity among learners. In international literature, it has been found that positive attitudes in educators towards inclusive education, play an important role in the successful implementation of an inclusive educational policy. From the literature, it becomes clear that, should educator's attitudes towards inclusion be negative, their teaching abilities in the inclusive classroom will be negatively affected. In order to achieve the goal of this study, a survey questionnaire which was completed by fifty educators (White and African) was conducted. The researcher was able to determine the influence of teaching facilities and teacher training on the attitudes of primary school educators towards implementation of inclusive education. From analysis of the data, it became apparent that these primary school educator's attitude was largely positive but they felt incompetent because of their lack of knowledge and skills, and because of the lack of teaching facilities and resources. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1988.

This study sought to understand what the schools do to promote the culture of nonviolence. In asking the question, "How do school work to develop a culture of nonviolence?" I produced data through the exploration of the activities and practices implemented in school. The critical question and sub question posed in the study were, firstly, how do school work to promote the culture of nonviolence? Secondly, how does the SMT do to promote the culture of nonviolence? Thirdly, how do teachers manage their teaching and learning activities to promote the culture of non-violence? Fourthly, how do learners experience the different activities and practices that the school adopts to promote the culture of nonviolence? Using Satyagraha theory as the theoretical lens for the study, I offer an understanding on how the school as a site offers the potential to promote nonviolence. Using a participatory research approach, I used one secondary school in ILembe District to participate in this study. The data sources used to produce the data included the individual interviews, focus group interviews, photo voice, classroom conversations and observations. The findings of the study show that within the physical environment of the school, different stakeholders attempt to actively adopt non-violent ways within the particular and common spaces of the school to develop in learners the capacity to differentiate between personal and societal forms of violence. The findings signal the need of a stronger partnership with other systems of the society such as the family system, social service, police service, media and the public at large since learners learn different forms of personal and social violence from different spaces and through different relations. The school is one system of a larger system and the study shows that it can not predict, control or remove the forms of violence that play out outside of the school and in individuals who choose to think and act in violent ways. Learners and teachers also bring violence to school. This study promotes the perspective that there are activities and strategies needed to be done inside and outside the classroom to promote non-violence, but this can be easily undermined in the absence of support mechanisms and structures at multiple levels outside of the school. While the school, through different strategies and practices such as morning assembly and surveillance mechanisms can help learners to differentiate between personal and societal forms of violence although some learners and teachers within the school still act in a violent way. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1977.