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Item Open Access “We cross night”: some reflections on the role of the ESKOM Expo for Young Scientists as a means of accommodating disadvantaged learners into the field of Science and Technology(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Alant, Busisiwe P.This article critiques the role of the ESKOM Expo for Young Scientists as a particularly salient node in the constitution of young learners’ identity as prospective participants in the field of science and technology. The ESKOM Expo is seen as a particularly exciting means of providing access to the niche area of science and technology. Yet this attraction camouflages a number of pitfalls that learners have to negotiate. Looked at as a vehicle of accommodation of the scientific and technological aspirations of the young people involved in this research, the ESKOM Expo reveals itself to be problematic in various ways. Positioning itself within a postcritical ethnographic framework, this article considers these issues at two levels: a) the disjuncture between the bureaucratic institution of the expositions and the intuitiveness and spontaneity evident in the learners’ preparation for the exposition; b) issues of language and representation that tend to marginalise learners from working class backgrounds. It is argued that the institution of the ESKOM Expo, while undoubtedly useful as a means of opening up young learners’ horizons of science and technology, is still not sufficiently flexible, both at a conceptual and an organisational level, for it to be the vehicle of technological empowerment it is intended to be.Item Open Access Learning about the effectiveness of teacher education: a Chilean study(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Avalos, Beatrice; Téllez, Francisco; Navarro, SilviaThe article reviews some of the problems faced by teacher education in general and in Chile specifically, and on this basis, presents the results of a study focused on the effects of six teacher education programmes on future primary level teachers’ learning of mathematics and mathematics pedagogy. The study describes the programmes and presents the results of a questionnaire and content knowledge test administered to future teachers in their first, third and final year of studies. The article considers as possible explanations for unsatisfactory effects of teacher preparation on future teacher learning, the relatively poor entry levels of student teachers and the generalist structure of the programmes. Differences among programmes between time allocation to mathematics and mathematics pedagogy learning did not appear to have an effect. Specific courses, however, did appear to make a difference among institutions.Item Open Access Editorial(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Francis, DennisAbstract not availableItem Open Access Markets, equality and democratic education: confronting the neoliberal and libertarian reconceptualisations of education(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Sung, Youl-KwanThe global emergence of market liberalism marks an effort to decouple the link between citizenship and the welfare state and to rearticulate people’s identity as homo economicus, as independent citizens having the right to property and the freedom to choose in the marketplace. Confronting this phenomenon, this paper reviews neoliberal and libertarian understandings of educational equality and democratic education and interrogates the rationale for the justification of markets in education. In the process, I criticise the notion of possessive individualism as a principle of democratic education on the grounds that such a notion explains human action only at the individual level, as a matter of free will, and not as a part of the cultural and political struggle for nondiscrimination. I also provide reasons why the claim to equal respect and recognition needs to be given more importance in education and argue for the social responsibility to secure not only students’ educational opportunities, but also their opportunity to reflectively consider what counts as equal value.Item Open Access Design refinement tools for a teacher education curriculum: the example of a service learning course(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Petersen, Nadine; Henning, ElizabethThis article addresses the issue of the theory-practice divide in pre-service teacher education from the viewpoint of design-based research (DBR). Using the example of a course in service learning (SL), the authors discuss their reflection on a curriculum that failed to help the students convert declarative knowledge to procedures of pedagogy, or to internalise this knowledge to become part of their disposition as teachers. The students’ theoretical work had remained in an epistemological apartheid zone where it did not meet with practice in either- procedural, conditional-, or reflective knowledge-making The authors then explore part of a curriculum revision model as proposed by Ruthven et al. (2009) who use DBR principles for curriculum refinement, including some of their “intermediary framework” set of tools in a revision that aimed to create an interface for theory and practice.Item Open Access The phenomenon of xenophobia as experienced by immigrant learners in Johannesburg inner city schools(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Krüger, Deirdré; Osman, RaziaThis article aims to describe how xenophobia is experienced by a small selection of immigrant participants in five inner city schools in Johannesburg. The May 2008 xenophobic violence prompted the investigation. Theoretically, the article is also concerned with ways to combat xenophobia in schools with a view to bringing about fundamental social change aimed at deconstructing ‘anti-xenophobia education’, as the term has been coined. The methodology for the qualitative inquiry took the form of a triple-layered case study: the layers consist of the various groups of participants: immigrant learners, South African learners and educators. Sixteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted and the main method of data analysis was content analysis using Tesch’s (Creswell, 1994: 155) method of sorting the content of communications. The findings support the need for anti-xenophobia education in the schools under scrutiny. The immigrant participants reported very little compassion, rather humiliation and degradation in the form of unjust stereotyping, prejudice, bias and discrimination. Although cosmopolitanism featured, ‘otherness’ is far from being incorporated into an all-embracing ‘us’. Distrust between immigrant and South African learners emerged and both groups stereotyped the other as violent, although lack of trust and fear as pervasive issues seemed to underlie the stereotyping.Item Open Access Dominant discourses of teachers in early childhood education(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Ebrahim, H. B.This article examines the dominant discourses teachers in early childhood education (ECE) used to produce understandings of children and educational practice for them. Seven teachers from two early childhood centres in urban KwaZulu-Natal participated in this qualitative study. Data were produced through semi-structured interviews and conversations. The shared discourses of biology, development and difference are discussed. The findings show that teachers unproblematically use dominant discourses which narrow possibilities for them to understand children. This in turn limits their capacity for shaping contextually relevant practice. The article concludes with a brief discussion on worthy areas to focus on in order to map a way forward for developing the skills and capacity of teachers in ECE.Item Open Access Using participatory video to explore teachers’ lived experiences(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Olivier, Tilla; De Lange, Naydene; Wood, LesleyTeachers who work in economically and socially disadvantaged environments have first-hand knowledge of the challenges that can impede teaching and learning, yet their voices are often ignored when researchers and policy-makers attempt to address such issues. In this article we describe how we attempted to make teacher voices audible via an intervention based on participatory visual methodology. A two-day participatory research-as-intervention workshop enabled twelve teachers from economically and socially disadvantaged township schools to produce videos that examined some challenges applicable to their praxis. The process of producing the participatory video offered the teachers the opportunity to learn more about themselves and their educational contexts, and to position themselves as “teachers who care”, as they collectively identified pertinent issues affecting their practice, decided on how to represent those issues visually and how to further use the finished product as a tool for teaching and/or community engagement.Item Open Access What teacher educators consider as best practices in preparing pre-service teachers for teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Essien, Anthony A.This paper reports on an investigation into what teacher educators consider to be best practices in how to prepare pre-service teachers to effectively deal with the challenges of teaching Mathematics in multilingual contexts, and how what teacher educators consider as best practices inform their own classroom practice. Twelve teacher educators (TEs) from four universities in a province in South Africa participated in the study. Through a qualitative analysis of the interviews, five practices emerged as best practices for these teacher educators: the use of code switching, the creation of an environment of trust in the classroom, the use of one (rather than two) medium of instruction, namely English, the use of linguistic metaphors that the languages present in the class potentially provide for use in mathematics, and, finally, the creation of an awareness of the multilingual context in which pre-service teachers would teach at the end of their qualification. Given that most teachers in South Africa teach in multilingual classrooms and teacher education research on mathematics education has not, thus far, focused on multilingual mathematics education, it is hoped that these five practices would serve as an inducement for both teacher educators and researchers alike. The author also cautions against the adoption of imported practices from other countries and argues that in delineating practices that are more likely to work in the South African context, it is important to bear in mind the distinctive nature of multilingualism in South Africa.Item Open Access Making Euclidean geometry compulsory: are we prepared?(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2010) Van Putten, Sonja; Howie, Sarah; Stols, GerritThis study investigated the attitude towards, as well as the level of understanding of Euclidean geometry in pre-service mathematics education (PME) students. In order to do so, a case study was undertaken within which a one group pre-post-test procedure was conducted around a geometry module, and a representative group of students was interviewed before and after the module to discuss their experiences of learning geometry and to analyse their attitudes towards the subject. The Van Hiele Theory of Levels of Thought in Geometry was used as the theoretical framework for this study. The geometry module offered did change the students’ attitude towards geometry, but still did not bring about a sufficient improvement in their level of understanding for these students to be able to teach geometry adequately.