Doctoral Degrees (School of Higher Education Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (School of Higher Education Studies) by Advisor "Francis, Dennis"

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    A collaborative self-study of educators working towards anti-oppressive practice in higher education
    (University of the Free State, 2016-01) Muller, Marguerite; Francis, Dennis
    In writing this thesis I tried to create an ‘artwork’ in which theory, literature, narrative and art become interwoven to illuminate the lived experiences of educators working towards anti-oppressive practices in a higher education context. I used an illustrated narrative inspired by the memories and experiences of the participants (including myself) in order to create ‘portraits’ of educators working in this context. These portraits are presented as collages which then become part of a bigger narrative. This narrative explores the connections between educator identity and the issues arising in the broader South African higher educational landscape. I employed Kevin Kumashiro’s (2002) four conceptualisations of anti-oppressive education as a theoretical lens through which to read and discuss the stories. Often, when we talk about social justice we talk about social identities and constructed identities. But these fixed categories can reduce us to measurable and quantifiable units that function in set hierarchies which and can never be disrupted or troubled. Through my research I rather attempt to emphasise the complex and messy nature of educators’ experiences and emotions as they try to teach in anti-oppressive ways. This study is rooted in arts-based practice and experiments with ways in which this research methodology can inform social change. The use of art in the thesis is thus purposefully connected to a theme of anti-oppressive change as it engages not only with different ways of being, but also different ways of learning and knowing. The work is situated in a poststructuralist framework in which oppression is read as intersectional, situated and multiple. Art opens up new spaces for the researcher to explore the social context and educational landscape. The extension of self-study into anti-oppressive theory made it possible to explore the contextual realities through the ‘eyes’ of the participants. In this exploration I used a collaborative self-study to connect the theory to the experiences of the educator where it can open up an in-between space in which anti-oppressive change becomes possible. Art assisted me to challenge certain academic conventions of thesis writing, but it also helped me to make connections between theory and experience that would otherwise have been impossible. The methodology informed me theoretically as working towards anti-oppressive change also involves giving up some control so that we can learn from uncertainty and crisis in order to trouble existing knowledge. The implication being that as educators we cannot learn or be ‘told’ how to work towards anti-oppressive practice but have to build such knowledge through our experiences – and our creative engagement with these experiences. The portraits foreground educators as complex beings dealing with complex issues and resist the idea that there is a correct way to be or to teach. In this way, it troubles prescriptive recipes for anti-oppressive practice by looking at creative avenues of exploring one’s identity to become different. This research shows how we work in in-between spaces of uncertainty, discomfort and self-doubt, and how our experiences are disruptive, interrupted, and messy. We are troubled and haunted by our own identities as we try to move our experience into a new frame in which difference is possible.
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    Exploring the development and implementation of health and support services in five South African higher education institutions for a key population, men who have sex with men
    (University of the Free State, 2017) Alves, Sianne Maria; Francis, Dennis
    𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 The need for university support of self-identifying students has received recent attention with the introduction of global funding and directives from the National Department of Health through the National Strategic Plan (2012-2016). Previous HIV prevention programmes funding provided hardly any to no support for self-identifying populations in specific HIV prevention programmes, with the result that structural discrimination reinforced hegemonic norms that constrained the “health, opportunities and resources of [already] socially stigmatized individuals” (Storholm et al., 2013 p.8). Being the only study, as at 15 January 2015, to focus on institutional programmes for men who have sex with men students (MSM) in higher education, my PhD contributes to a gap in knowledge and HIV prevention responses within the university setting. The research reviews five university programmes that were developed to provide biopsychosocial responses for self-identifying students at university. The findings contribute towards praxis that seeks to serve and support populations that experience more than one form of oppression. Applying a critical theorist approach, I conducted ten two hour qualitative interviews with programme coordinators working at five South African universities, to identify the methods they used to locate and retain MSM students within systems of health and support. Furthermore, through the analysis of the data, I analyse the unique approaches that are used in their combined prevention programmes for MSM students in higher education institutions. These approaches include innovations for locating MSM; social media use; structural change; health innovations; and psychosocial changes that focus on creating an enabling environment for sexually diverse students in the higher education setting. As a critical theorist, I question the location of power and how the five programme coordinators navigated the university terrain in order to seek support and establish a contentious programme for self-identifying students in university. The results demonstrate that institutional support can be located within the various echelons of the university, which ultimately contests the power held by the executive management. Further findings question the role of academia in institutional programmes and calls for equality in the provision of health and related services for self-identifying students in higher education institutions. Despite South Africa having an advanced Constitution and higher education system, there is much more work to be done, in the training of health care practitioners who are mandated through National policy, to create an inclusive health care environment. Similarly, universities as sites of academic freedom, seemingly fail to uphold the equal protection and implementation of students’ right to sexual orientation and in so doing reinforce heteronormative practices that further discriminate and alienate self-identifying students in university - which results in the limited uptake of HIV prevention and support services in university. My PhD research contributes towards the gap in knowledge that articulates the changes required in higher education institutions that would enhance combined prevention programmes for MSM and sexually diverse populations at university. ___________________________________________________________________