AA 2006 Volume 38 Issue 1

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  • ItemOpen Access
    A theoretical exposition of the concept “spontaneous healing in children”: a SHIPiCTM perspective
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Strydom, Irene
    English: SHIP® (spontaneous healing intra-systemic process) (JOS 2002) as a psycho-therapeutic model has developed over many years during which the fascinating occurrence of spontaneous healing in clients was observed. In 2001 The SHIP® Foundation was launched to promote the schooling of registered psychologists in the art of facilitating healing in clients, which inevitably created more balance and integration in clients, families and communities. The development of the spontaneous healing therapeutic technique in children soon followed and SHIPiCTM (spontaneous healing intra-systemic process in children) was trade marketed in 2003. This article is intended to explain the core theoretical principles of this exciting therapeutic model with regard to children.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The provision of continuing professional development in the natural sciences at the Universityof Stellenbosch
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Frick, Liezel; Kapp, Chris
    English: Continuing professional development (CPD) gains relevance and prominence in a global society characterised by constant change and a consumer-driven market economy. Competence, accountability, professionalism and lifelong learning are concepts currently requiring professionals to improve their expertise continuously. This article reports on the providers and the provision of CPD within a particular professional field, namely the natural sciences in higher education. The findings are based on the literature and a qualitative study conducted in the Faculty of Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. This mapping of the provision of CPD will provide an insight into current practice within the field, which could assist in determining future initiatives.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Dollarisation as an alternative exchange rate regime for emerging countries
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Wessels, Buks
    English:Over the past three decades exchange rate volatility has motivated a renewed search for stable and predictable exchange rate regimes. As a fixed exchange rate regime, dollarisation has increasingly been suggested as such an alternative, and is currently receiving renewed attention. This article is aimed at investigating the nature and rationale for such a regime, and also analysing its advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, a critique of dollarisation, together with an analysis of its suitability for various circumstances and types of economies, is offered in order to determine its specific niche on the exchange rate spectrum. The regime is found to have merit, but to be applicable only to a limited number of countries with specific features.
  • ItemOpen Access
    New security thinking: defence and societal transformation in South Africa
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Ferreira, Rialize
    English: New security thinking, with its specific focus on human security, is different from earlier perspectives, which focused primarily on state security. In South Africa, state security is no longer threatened by conventional threats. With new challenges such as global poverty, unemployment and economic decline, the needs of people are addressed as much as those of the state or military strategy. An expansive approach to the concept of human security has been infused in all domestic policies. Human security includes the satisfaction of the basic needs of life, and encompasses the creation of the social, political, economic, military, environmental and cultural conditions necessary for survival, human rights and good governance.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Forgery, fiction and pseudonym in the collection of medical letters prefacing Marcellus’s De medicamentis
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Cilliers, Louise
    English: In this article the corpus of eight letters serving as a preface to the pharmaceutical recipe collection which constitutes Marcellus’s De medicamentis is examined from a literary point of view. The classification of the various letters in the epistolographic genre is discussed; the identities of the writers and the addressees are investigated, and in cases where the names are fictitious or incorrect, an attempt is made to determine the reason. Finally, the question is posed: why do all these apparently unrelated letters form part of this collection?
  • ItemOpen Access
    An ambiguous partnership of word and tone: media “confrontation” in Mozart’s Don Giovanni
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Viljoen, Martina
    English: Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni is generally recognised as the greatest work dealing with the theme of Don Juan. It is also extremely complex and raises in an unusually challenging way the significance of the figure of Don Giovanni. This article examines the relevance of Nicholas Cook’s theory regarding the analysis of musical multimedia. Focusing also on the works of Wye Jamison Allanbrook and Leonard Ratner that have a bearing on the topic, it explores Mozart’s ingenious deployment of musical expression, style, and syntax in the opera as primary agents in the construction of human character. Cook’s “contest” model postulates that the projection of Don Giovanni’s character owes its complexity to a remarkably ambiguous partnership of word and tone, resulting in what may be called a “contradiction” of musical and verbal meaning.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Community-based education: a case study of the MED 113 expo at the University of the Free State
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Prinsloo, Adri; Joubert, Gina; Du Toit, Gawie
    English: Complaints that health professionals do not address the needs of society have necessitated new methods of teaching and learning. The community-based education (CBE) approach could address these concerns. The aim of this study was to determine if community-based activities could help students to integrate theory and practice, or influence their attitudes and behaviour towards the community. It was a quantitative study including a literature review and questionnaires. The results yielded a 75.7% positive response with regard to the integration of theory and practice and a 77.9% positive response in terms of changed attitudes towards the community. Recommendations are made on changes to the CBE activities of MED 113 in order for it to serve as a model for other CBE modules at the University of the Free State.
  • ItemOpen Access
    In defence of history as a school subject
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Schoeman, Sonja
    English: In view of the fact that the majority of learners terminate their study of history at the end of the General Education and Training phase (Grade 9), active steps should be taken by history practitioners and important role-players to prevent the subject from becoming extinct in government schools. It is no longer sufficient justification to say, for example, that some learners enjoy history or that educators are now using an unparalleled variety of methods. There is a need for an adequate and effective promotional strategy to “sell” history in government schools. It must not only convince adult sceptics, whether inside or outside the staff room, but also give learners at the end of the General Education and Training phase reasons to consider choosing to study history in the Further Education and Training phase (Grades 10 to 12).
  • ItemOpen Access
    The daily experience of farm dwellers on a commercial farm inthe North-West Province
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Ryke, Elma
    English: Farm dwellers’ daily experiences on a commercial farm in the North-West Province are qualitatively explored and described with the aim of arriving at an understanding of their specific experience. It is concluded that they experience their environment as entrapping. Numerous forces structure this experience, such as a lack of tangible and social resources, their geographical and social isolation, the uneven transformation of traditional employment relations and a sense of powerlessness (an inability to influence their circumstances). However, they also experience it as including some enabling elements.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The incorporation of African traditional health practitioners into the South African health care system
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Summerton, Joy
    English: The need to progress from parallel or merely tolerant health care systems towards integrated systems in countries with both traditional and western health care systems has been acknowledged globally. Underlying this acknowledgement is the need to respond to the expressed health care needs of communities. This article offers a critical reflection on national and international policies as they relate to African traditional medicine and healing in the context of the South African health care system. Key policy documents and laws pertaining to traditional healing are addressed so as to elucidate the current legal and social status of African traditional medicine and health practitioners in South Africa. The Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2004 is a breakthrough in attempts to legitimise and professionalise traditional practitioners, but this article also identifies aspects of the Act that may evoke conflict.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The work experience of white male academics
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Schulze, Salomé
    English: This article reports on the work experiences of a group of white male academics from the human sciences and on the usefulness of some theories of job satisfaction. Quantitative data were collected from 25 respondents by means of a questionnaire. Thereafter, qualitative data were collected. Eight participants were provided with cameras and requested to photograph their work experiences. This was followed by interviews based on the images. A central theme that emerged was the attitude of each individual. Secondary themes relating to job satisfaction were a positive physical environment/support; satisfying interpersonal relationships, and independence/autonomy/freedom. Secondary themes relating to job dissatisfaction were promotion issues, administrative burdens, and heavy teaching loads, aggravated by weak students.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Teaching mentally disabled learners
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Olivier, Tilla; Williams, Evelyn
    English: This investigation focused on the “special” (different from mainstream education) nature of special education and teachers’ experiences of the challenges of teaching the mentally disabled learner. The aim was to investigate the nature of the experiences of teachers of mentally disabled learners and what guidelines can be provided for them. A qualitative study with a descriptive, explorative, subjective and contextual research design was chosen, using a phenomenological approach to data collection. This report of the findings may serve as a basis for guidelines to teachers.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Teaching aspects of English sentences to second-language learners: a Nigerian example
    (University of the Free State, 2006)
    English: This paper is informed by a study carried out among 720 randomly selected senior secondary school learners from 36 randomly selected secondary schools from the Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Lagos, Ondo and Ekiti States of Nigeria (Asiyanbola, 2003). Based on the employment of the elicitation techniques of six composition topics and a ten-item supply-response test, a large number of grammatical problems were identified from observations of the written language behaviour of the participants. The pupils experienced great difficulty in forming non-basic and non-simple sentences. A step-by-step presentation of English sentences is thus suggested: basic simple, non-basic simple and non-simple sentences. These could be incorporated into the grammar units of three common English language course books and the teaching syllabus used in Nigerian senior secondary schools. Moreover, essential points of grammar are also suggested, to be taught alongside each of the sentence types at various stages, since sentences cannot be taught in isolation.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Drop-out in township secondary schools: educators’ perspectives
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Masitsa, Gilbert
    English: The drop-out rate at township secondary schools is increasing with no sign of abating. Elevated drop-out levels cause a high rate of functional illiteracy, limited occupational and economic prospects, and an increase in the already high rate of unemployment in the country. This article examines the determinants of learner drop-out on the basis of a literature study, along with a survey of the perceptions of educators about the reasons why students drop out of school. The data from educators were obtained by means of a questionnaire. The study has uncovered factors that culminate in learners’ decision to drop out of school, a problem which must be addressed.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Christian faith and economic life: some Kuyperian themes
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Beukes, Elwil
    English: This article argues that the legacy of the nineteenth-century Dutch statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper merits renewed attention for the light it sheds on some topical economic issues of our time. Kuyper’s life and work (1837-1920) had a marked influence on the Dutch societal landscape and beyond, well into the twentieth century. He proposed an understanding of Biblical belief entailing an across-the-board understanding of how believers should live, with comprehensive and far-reaching effects. This study traces the implications of Kuyper’s views on faith and public life and his conception of sphere sovereignty, as well as the application of these ideas to the role of markets and governments and to economic development.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Cognitive dimensions of politics: relativism and rationalism
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Faure, Murray
    English: This article investigates whether there are necessarily links between relativist and rationalist thinking and the nature of the politics that ensues from these epistemologies. Claims that posit such linkages have permeated political theory as well as the philosophy of science for many decades. The arguments in earlier as well as more recent discourses to this end are appraised here, with no necessary causal link being found between the claims of these discourses and the conventional world of politics. Political theory and metatheory are not substitutes for the thought that informs political action, and hence the nature of politics. The analysis suggests that the two epistemologies can co-exist, irrespective of whether politics is democratic or autocratic in nature. To the extent that epistemologies inform political thought, their nature does not predetermine the nature of the politics that they inform; the latter is rather a function of substantive claims contained in the epistemologies themselves, of the complex and dynamic interaction between these claims, and of a multitude of other factors.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Oral people can be literate: some reflections on aurally based literacy
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Alant, Jaco
    English: The concept of literacy, in its “autonomous” view as a language derived skill offering certain cognitive advances, can be situated within the context of primary orality. Aurally based literacy becomes possible to the extent that sound (the “musical”) fulfils the function of a second order of linguistic representation in an oral society, a function fulfilled by writing in a society which uses writing (visually based literacy). The paper describes a model for aurally based literacy, drawing strongly on musicological insights (in particular those of Jean-Jacques Nattiez) on the meaning of music. It then reflects on the implications of the acceptance of an aurally based literacy for the study of orality, reconceptualised as “aural linguistics”. Conceiving of an aurally based literacy represents a particular way of undermining the notion of technological determinism, which has already received much criticism in research on orality (the oral tradition).
  • ItemOpen Access
    Die loopbaandilemmas van akademiese personeel verbonde aan ’n veranderende Suid-Afrikaanse hoëronderwysinstelling
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Pienaar, Cobus; Bester, Coen
    English: The purpose of this study was to identify the typical career dilemmas of academic staff in various career stages within a changing South African higher education institution. Data were obtained by means of the Delphi technique in order to enable respondents to reveal their experiences fully. The open-ended question was: Identify the most important career dilemmas you are currently experiencing within your work environment. Major career dilemmas identified related to performance management and promotion, role overload and role conflict, remuneration, management issues, lack of job security, discrimination, support for research and teaching, training and development, equipment and working conditions, general support, bureaucracy, change, and transformation.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The relevance of the Bewußtseins-Industrie to the essayistic oeuvre of Hans Magnus Enzensberger
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Van den Berg, Cilliers
    English: With an interest in issues relating to the role of literature in the socio-political context, Hans Magnus Enzensberger uses the Bewußtseins-Industrie in many of his texts as an analytical construct to describe the way in which society functions. This becomes evident particularly in essays in which he deals directly with social aspects. In both his poetics and his creative work this problematic issue is often present too. The purpose of this essay is to trace succinctly the roots of Enzensberger’s Bewußtseins-Industrie to some aspects of the Kulturindustrie of Theodor W Adorno, and then to describe the key position which this notion occupies in his essayistic oeuvre.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Motivating primary-school learners in mathematics classrooms
    (University of the Free State, 2006) Maimane, Joseph
    English: This article explores ways in which primary school mathematics teachers in Mangaung township, Bloemfontein motivate their learners to understand mathematical concepts, to make sense of instructions, and to solve mathematical problems. Data was obtained from class observation, with conclusions being drawn after analysing the discourse. The results indicated that approaching mathematics as a game can motivate learners, resulting in the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The social dimension also plays a role. The use of the mother-tongue (at appropriate times) can be useful in assisting learners to understand mathematical concepts.