The autoethnographic research project #selfie investigates the effects of the social media platform Instagram on the well-being of users aged 15–28 years. It focuses on the physical, psychological and psychosocial aspects of this user group’s behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. A review of current research shows that while Instagram usage can enhance short-term well-being by triggering positive emotional responses, the long-term consequences can include information overload and stress phenomena, which can lead to a decreased ability or even inability to focus on one specific thing or moment. The present thesis examines the effect of this decreased or lacking ability on individuals’ competence of reflective thinking and “mindfulness,” a competence which can be linked to living a lifestyle of sustainability. Without reflective thinking, individuals are unable to determine their own standpoint when it comes to issues related to sustainability. The review of current research is juxtaposed with excerpts from interviews and conversations with the investigated user group, as well as autoethnographic investigation and reflective illustrations based on the author’s own experience with Instagram. Through this, the actuality of prevailing opinions in current literature is discussed critically. This research suggests that design can and should bring issues such as extensive Instagram usage and its possible effects to public attention by offering an approach that can be as informative as appealing, making it attractive to commit to reflective thinking and encouraging the audience to broaden their horizon on the issue. The design proposal of this project consists of an illustrated graphic story which combines comics, illustration and text in the form of a zine which opens up a platform for dialogue on Instagram usage, therefore challenging readers to reflect on their own experiences and guiding them on their way to mindful social media use.

This autoethnographic study was inspired by my own lived experiences with mathematics and mathematics education as a Black female. My study uses my voice to share my own history and my experiences of mathematics education. It was first inspired by my mother and later by my primary and secondary school teachers. My autoethnography is situated within the South African context of continued unequal education provisioning along economic and racial lines. My autoethnography takes cognisance of my own context of being born a Black woman in a South African Black township. Therefore, Black feminist theory was deemed a relevant theory for the study. I personally conducted this study in order to tell my story to others who might find themselves in similar situations. The study is approached from a qualitative perspective and uses autoethnography as the methodology. My mother, father, peers, and primary and secondary school teachers are used as the contributors in this study. I have made use of self-interview, personal memory, archival records and critical conversations to collect data. Through my autoethnography, I hope to fill the gap in the underrepresentation of Black females in mathematics. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

In this article, the author dissects and refracts a single, defining moment in his life using autoethnography and the lenses of specific communication and social theories. The author mines the moment in first, second, and third person to uncover the different responses to overwhelming emotions ranging from the noble to the shameful in response to his father’s “coming out of the closet.” A torrent of emotion took the author by surprise and is the total moment of his analysis in this article. The author scrutinizes the multiple ways in which this moment was a release, a turning point, an ending, a beginning, bittersweet, hateful and hate filled, selfish, guilt ridden, and loving. Through multiple retellings of the event, like the film Groundhog Day, the author presents the moment in different narrative formats, from multiple perspectives, with relevant quotations and passages to thoroughly dissect the emotional layers.

This is a qualitative study using ethnographic methods to collect data and critical autoethnography to reflect on my personal history in the light of what I learned about others (Anderson and Glass-Coffin, 2013; Ellis, 2009; Erickson, 2011; Manning and Adams, 2015; Rennel, 2015). My research focuses on race and culture in relation to perceptions in relationships, community, and education before and after urban renewal. I present my work in two-manuscripts: Growing Up White: I Didn't Know What I Didn't Know and Gainsboro: It's Just the Way Things Were. The first portion of the study looks at growing up in a White neighborhood in Roanoke, Virginia, during the early years of integration and the Civil Rights Movement, while being unaware of the existence of another world beyond my own. The second manuscript presents findings from interviews in the corresponding Black community and archival research interrogating systemic issues associated with urban renewal. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this study, I examine the effects of urban renewal on race and culture in a mid-sized southern city. My work focuses on individual perceptions about relationships, community, and education. The first portion of the study looks at growing up in a white neighborhood during the early years of integration and the Civil Rights Movement, while being unaware of the existence of another world beyond this one. The following section presents findings from interviews with residents in the corresponding Black community and research on issues associated with urban renewal.

When our family relocated from South Africa to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2015, I was not prepared for the inception of my personal evolution. Stepping into a classroom as a mathematics teacher, after nearly a decade of being a self-sustainable entrepreneur, forced me to evaluate my motives for becoming a teacher, and shifted my focus to progress and the development of my own pedagogy. Just as I was finding my feet in the British international schooling system in the UAE, the coronavirus disease of 2019 (Covid-19) resulted in a global pandemic and forced all schools to close and roll out distance learning education systems. In turn, this led to a revolution in the teaching profession as I knew it. Both of these contexts paved the way of the title of the thesis: The (r) evolution of a miserable teacher – an autoethnography Autoethnography challenges the canonical manner in which research is conducted, allowing the researcher to use her personal experience (auto) to understand the cultural experience (ethno) better and describe (graphy) the results in narrative form. This might be an oversimplified definition of a complex journey of self-discovery and contextual understanding, but holistically even a definition can evolve. The use of a postmodern perspective throughout the thesis ensured that the data were not limited to a singular paradigm but were rather a culmination of what was relevant at the time of the research. Through reflective and reflexive data collection and construction techniques, a progressive and innovative data graph was developed to visually enhance the (r)evolution of the data description, analysis and evaluation. Conceptual metaphor theory allowed Les Misérables to be the framework and foundation for the data to be constructed. This study contributes to the teachers' collective by combining traditional paradigms in a new, brave, evolutionary way. A personal evolution through resilience and agility became evident through reflective and reflexive data and literature. Evolution is never-ending, but by becoming aware of the effects of personal growth, the process is elevated to a sustainable focus in everyday life. The evolution did not falter when Covid- 19 forced the education sphere to momentarily pause at a possible revolutionary turning point. Distance education allowed politicians, school developers and owners, curriculum writers, principals, school boards and managers, teachers and parents to re-evaluate methodologies, curriculum content and inclusion policies, as well as the everyday implementation of policies and procedures. Literature proves that a revolution was necessary and Covid-19 made this possible by funnelling our expectations into experience. The revolution is far from complete but, similar to evolution, awareness leads to improved practice. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Humanities Education / PhD / Unrestricted

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At the heart of this dissertation project is my interest in the internal conflict that emerges in the mundane navigation and maintenance of relational and contextual penalty and privilege. That is to say, I am interested in how individuals maneuver their/our concurrent identity/ies as oppressor and oppressed. I argue that this simultaneous identity is a holistic embodiment that demands complex maneuvering and that requires our vigilant attention. In addition, I am interested in the critical potential of such maneuvering for activism. In this vein, I introduce my intent to queer the limits of identity research in critical intercultural communication research while contributing to, and drawing on, what others have referred to as queer intersectionality (Bilge, 2012; Rosenblum, 1994). I envision queer intersectionality as an ontological modality that yields heuristic potentiality that can aid critical intercultural communication researchers explore the ways in which we embody a simultaneous oppressor-oppressed identity. In order to understand queer intersectionality as an ontological modality, I offer embodied contexts that give rise to oppression and power in given and fleeting moments. Halualani and Nakayama (2010) remind us that “critical work recognizes that there is no theory in advance and no social process of culture without some theoretical sense-making; it travels through a trajectory of theory from and towards context” (p. 9). Centralizing the directed attention upon the significance of context, I intend queer intersectionality to be an embodied modality that critical intercultural communication researchers can use to explore and theorize simultaneous oppressor-oppressed identity performances and critically envision the co-constitutive relationship between privilege and disadvantage.

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In their various works, researchers, writers, and scholars regularly discuss the public school building level principal. The principal’s role and the tasks performed by the principal are generally recognized as valuable to the educational community. For the most part, the general public has little idea of what the principal’s role entails. Building level principals complete training for the principalship, but their readiness for the principalship is debatable. There is little literature that discusses the first-year principal; the principalship of small, rural schools; and the principalship as experienced by a first-year principal. This study identified what the first-year principal of a rural school encountered during his first year. The study documented events that included school stakeholders such as community members, board members, teachers, students, and central office personnel. The documented events are presented chronologically, beginning with appointment to the principalship and concluding with the final week of the first school year. Events included school finance, student discipline, and curriculum. The research was conducted as an autoethnography, which allowed documentation of the events of the first-year principal from a first-hand perspective. The intricate details provided insight to the first year of administrative duties. Findings determined that the principal’s readiness for assuming the principal’s role had little to do with prior educational training, but more to do with personal qualities and prior job experiences as a coach, teacher, and assistant principal. Discussion and recommendations include the need for preparation programs for rural administrators to recognize they cannot prepare administrators for all decisions they will make, but can prepare them to be decision-makers and leaders. Many duties of this first-year principal were learned on-the-job, including financial matters concerning the handling of school funds, the relationship with the school secretary, and the handling of athletic events.

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