published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study attempted to determine the principal's role in fostering democratic values in schools, which will enable learners to participate meaningfully in society / as well as to suggest attainable recommendations to empower school principals to form or maintain democratically run learning organizations. International and local research has shown that it is widely accepted that schools are important training grounds for democratic practices, because schooling is the largest and most important collective enterprise undertaken in modern societies. It therefore has the potential to have greater influence on values, skills and work habits than any other public institution.

The problem is to develop a sound pattern of teacher education that will produce teachers capable of functioning adequately in modern public schools of a democracy.

This study attempted to determine the principal's role in fostering democratic values in schools, which will enable learners to participate meaningfully in society / as well as to suggest attainable recommendations to empower school principals to form or maintain democratically run learning organizations. International and local research has shown that it is widely accepted that schools are important training grounds for democratic practices, because schooling is the largest and most important collective enterprise undertaken in modern societies. It therefore has the potential to have greater influence on values, skills and work habits than any other public institution.

This study investigated the seemingly conflicting and incompatible ideological positions that post-apartheid South Africa appears to straddle. On the one hand, South Africa is an aspiring liberal democracy courtesy of its constitution of 1996, which is liberal in that it enshrines a wide range of rights and freedoms for the individual. On the other hand, the same constitution recognises the institution of traditional leadership, whose claim to power is hereditary and not by popular vote. Thus the study established that South Africa is an aspiring liberal democracy that is also heavily steeped in African traditions and cultures. It offered a rebuttal of the view that existence and recognition of traditional institutions of politics and governance in a liberal democracy is a fundamental contradiction. Drawing on the literature the study showed that liberal democracies such as Japan, the United Kingdom (UK), Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain, have had monarchies from time immemorial. But their monarchies are not a hindrance to either liberalism or liberal democracy. The study underscored the importance of Ubuntu as a socio-cultural discourse in South Africa, more so given that South Africa is an African country whose population is 80 per cent African. Concomitantly the study proposed a philosophy of education that amalgamates some aspects of liberal education with some aspects of African traditional education. Aspects of liberal education that were found to pertain to the amalgamation are ‘cultivating humanity’ and ‘narrative imagination’, while aspects of African traditional education are the values and principles implicit in Ubuntu, the latter understood as a humane normative concept. At a practical classroom level the study proposed that such an amalgamated philosophy of education would be attained through storytelling and the teaching of history through chronology and causation. As a form of ‘narrative’, storytelling reveals the finite in its fragile uniqueness and illustrates how the past influences and shapes the present, and how the present determines aspects of the past that are useful and meaningful today. Similarly the teaching of history through chronology and causation enables the students to organise their historical thought processes and construct their own probable historical narratives. The teaching of history through chronology and causation therefore offers the students multiple opportunities to gain a better understanding of historical events, and lessons that can be learn from such events. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Thesis (MEd) -- Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explored the views of thirteen youth at Victoria High School about what they regarded as achievement and how this influenced their lives and what they thought about their futures. The starting premise of the study was that all learners think about achievement. The goal of the study was thus to show how different learners connect this understanding of achievement with their respective aspirations and the kinds of social and schooling worlds they inhabit. The key contribution of the study is the ways it links the social, cultural, and economic worlds of each of the thirteen learners to what they say about what they do and what they want to do, who they are and who they want to be, and what they think they do and what they think they want to do. The study shows that the life-worlds of each of the learners are significantly different yet the ways they go about making sense of that world are fairly similar. In that regard it is shown that the school, and what learners, parents and educators think it is and does, plays a crucial role in the sense-making process. As Berkhout (2008) notes, the different contexts that shape the lives of individuals are not simply external forces but rather are integral parts of their identity-making process. The study used the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Arjun Appadurai to bring together a framework by which to understand what learners said about their worlds and their aspirations, as well to develop a narrative that showed the rich and complex ways in which learners engaged with their realities. The study followed an interpretive qualitative approach to explore the issue of achievement and based its arguments on interviews conducted with thirteen youth between the ages of fifteen and seventeen years old. In this regard, a key finding was that learners approached the notion of achievement in developmental, cumulative, and progressive ways. These views included wanting to be popular, gaining new knowledge, preparing for future material acquisition, developing skills to lead decent lives, acquiring happiness, developing the ability to overcome their challenges and circumstances, and gaining skills and recognition that set up their futures. Five staff members at Victoria High school were also interviewed for their views of the schooling context and the kinds of cultures and legacies that framed their practice. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tesis is gefokus op die denke van dertien studente van Victoria Hoërskool aangaande die nosie van prestasie, en hoe hierdie denke hul lewens beïnvloed sowel as wat hulle dink van hul toekoms. Die vertrekpunt van die verbande studie was dat alle leerders oor prestasie dink. Die doel van die tesis (daaruitvoortspruitend) was dus om aan te toon hoe verskillende leerders ʼn verband aanlê tussen hul beskouing van prestasie, hul aspirasies en die maatskaplike- en skoolwêrelde wat hul beleef. Die kern bydrae van die tesis is die verbande wat gemaak is in die verbande studie tussen die sosiale, kulturele en ekonomiese wêrelde van elkeen van die dertien leerders ten opsigte van hul beskouing aangaande wat hulle doen en wil doen, wat hulle is en wil wees, en wat hulle dink hulle doen en wil doen. Die tesis toon aan dat die leefwêreld van elk van die leerders merkbaar verskillend is, maar dat die wyse waarop hulle betekenis gee aan hul leefwêreld tog redelik ooreenstem. In hierdie verband is dit getoon dat die skool, en wat leerders, ouers en onderwysers daaromtrent dink, ʼn kardinale rol speel in hul betekenisvormingsproses. Berkhout (2008) voer in hierdie verband aan dat die verskillende kontekste wat die lewens van individue vorm nie slegs eksterne magte is nie, maar eerder integrale dele van hul identiteitsvormings proses is. Die studie maak gebruik van die werk van Pierre Bourdieu en Arjun Appadurai om ʼn raamwerk te ontwikkel om leerders se beskouinge van hul wêrelde en aspirasies te verstaan, sowel as om ‘n narratief te ontwikkel wat die ryk en komplekse wyses waarop leerders met hul realiteite omgaan, aan te toon. Die tesis, en verbande studie, het ʼn interpretatiewe, kwalitatiewe benadering gevolg om die idee van prestasie te verken en het die tesis argumente baser op onderhoude met dertien leerders tussen vyftien tot sewentienjaar oud. ʼn Kernbevinding in hierdie verband was dat leerders die idée van prestasie op ontwikkelings-, kumulatiewe- en progressiewe wyses benader. Beskouinge van leerders in die verband sluit onder andere in, die behoefte om populêr te wees, die verkryging van nuwe kennis, voorbereiding om materiële goedere in die toekoms te bekom, die ontwikkeling van vaardighede noodsaaklik vir ʼn ordentlike lewe, die strewe na geluk, die ontwikkeling van die vermoë om hul uitdagings en omstandighede te oorkom, en die ontwikkeling vaardighede en erkenning noodsaaklik vir hul toekoms. Onderhoude is ook gevoer met vyf personeellede van Victoria hoërskool om hul beskouinge ten opsigte van die skoolkonteks en die soort kulture en erfenisse wat hul praktyk informeer te bepaal.

This study highlighted the educators understanding of their role, the priorities that they deemed important and the practices they employed to promote in their learners the values and virtues fit for citizens of a democratic society.

The purpose of this project was to design a values package to create awareness and understanding for seventh grade students in the value system so as to achieve a more complementary classroom atmosphere. The value system is a new concept based on Clare Graves' seven levels of psychological existence: Reactive, Tribalistic, Egocentric, Conformist, Manipulative, Sociocentric, Existential. In addition, the package was designed to integrate the affective and cognitive levels of learning into an experimental learning situation. The package included written material, games, and activities which are all designed to create self-awareness and maintain relevancy for the students.