Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Open Access Digitising and archiving HIV and AIDS in South Africa: the Museum of AIDS in Africa as an archival intervention(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Doubt, Jenny SuzanneThe AIDS epidemic in South Africa has demanded interventions from a number of different forums. Drawing on theory relating to the archive in post-apartheid South Africa and data from the online archive from the Museum of AIDS in Africa (MAA), this article explores the possibilities and challenges of using digital technologies alongside physical artefacts to intervene in the AIDS epidemic in South Africa by creating a postcolonial AIDS archive. Focusing in particular on the case of the MAA, in this article I examine the ability of the MAA to act as an archival intervention into the epidemic in two ways. The first of these is through the development of physical and digital archives that prioritise diversity and accessibility in order to reach marginalised constituencies. The second is by breaking the silence about those made most marginalised and vulnerable by HIV and AIDS through giving them the opportunity to contribute to the Museum’s digital content.Item Open Access From spaces of sexual violence to sites of networked resistance: re-imagining mobile and social media technologies(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Hart, Laurel; Mitchell, ClaudiaTo date, much of the work on mobile and social media in the context of sexual violence has focused on its threats and harmful effects, particularly in relation to cyber-bullying and other forms of online harassment. But what if we think of such technologies as technologies of non-violence? In this article we make a case for exploring this work in rural South Africa, where, in spite of some challenges of access, the availability of technology is increasing the number of possible ways of addressing sexual violence. Building on what we offer as a primer of technologies currently available, we consider the implications of this work for researchers (especially those in education), interested in how technology can help to address sexual violence.Item Open Access Young people being literate in a digital space: what can textspeak tell us?(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Wiebesiek, LisaRecognising the challenge facing many young South Africans in accessing affordable, appropriate reading material and content, the FunDza Literacy Trust produces texts, including novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction written for a young adult audience. The focus in this article is on the short stories which are made available via a cellular telephone-based social networking platform called Mxit. Users of the FunDza Mxit platform are able to read short stories and can also comment on what they have read on interactive discussion boards. In their comments on these discussion boards, users make extensive use of a form of written English to which I will refer as textspeak. The discussion boards create a digital space in which users can engage in literate activities that encompass both the traditional aspects of literacy (the mechanics of reading and writing), and the social aspects of literacy (the ideologies and power relations present and represented in a text). Using critical literacy as a framework, and a qualitative textual analysis approach, I analyse one short story and the user comments from the interactive discussion board on that story. My analysis of the user comments suggests three themes: 1) using textspeak, young people are engaging in literate activities; 2) this engagement demonstrates a promising level of literacy among the users; and 3) the users are engaging critically with texts and their social messaging and functions, and, therefore, are displaying a level of critical literacy. From this analysis, I conclude that there is potential in using digital platforms like the FunDza Mxit platform, and forms of language like textspeak, to encourage young people in South Africa to develop critical literacy about important issues that affect their lives, such as gender and sexuality, agency, and risk and vulnerability.Item Open Access Digital storytelling: creating participatory space, addressing stigma, and enabling agency(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Mnisi, ThokoThis article explores using digital storytelling as community-based participatory research methodology with twelve secondary school learners in a rural community in South Africa who had experienced, witnessed, or heard about HIV- and AIDS-related stigma. It explores the question of how digital storytelling can enable secondary school learners in a rural community to identify, describe and address HIV- and AIDS-related stigma. The learners produced digital stories and written reflections, and also engaged in focus group discussions. My focus is on the way in which digital storytelling created a critical space of participation and, in so doing, enabled the learner participants to identify and address issues related to HIV- and AIDS-related stigma as well as enabling them to take charge of effecting change in their community. My fieldwork experience encouraged me to think more critically about using digital storytelling in community-based research.Item Open Access The SenseCam as a research tool for exploring learner experiences in an urban classroom space(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Chetty, CarmelIn this article I describe an ethnographic exploration into the daily school life of Grade 6 learners at an urban school that serves impoverished areas in Durban. The school is representative of the racial demographics of the country. The study explores how Grade 6 learners experience education, and probes how human experiences are mediated through everyday classroom practices and interaction, taking into account the complex influences from the community in the life of the school and, in particular, the lives of the learners. Photographic evidence obtained through the use of a discreet SenseCam, worn by the class teachers and by me, the researcher, in turn, is an essential part of the large data collection that also includes observation notes, interviews, and historical records. I explain the use and value of the SenseCam as a research tool. I demonstrate that learners undermined their own learning and that a multiplicity of factors had an impact on learning and the way the learners experienced school life. Complex social relationships extended beyond the confines of the school.Item Open Access From discomfort to collaboration: teachers screening cellphilms in a rural South African school(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) MacEntee, Katie; Mandrona, AprilSouth Africa continues to contend with an HIV pandemic. Teachers have the potential to address prevention and treatment with their learners but they struggle to implement HIV and AIDS education. Cellphilm projects—using cellphones to create videos, and then screening these—is one example of how digital technology can be used to address barriers to teacher-implemented HIV education. In this article we focus on the work of nine teachers who screened their cellphilms to three youth audiences. We explore how teachers can integrate cellphilm screenings into their teaching practice to address HIV and AIDS, and we consider what this integration tells us about the potential and challenges of teachers dealing with this issue in rural South Africa. Informed by a framework of discomfort, we analyse participant observation notes, fieldnotes, and pre- and post-event interviews. We argue that moments of discomfort during the events reveal the difficulties and strategies that teachers use to negotiate multiple—sometimes contradictory—sexual health education policies. The cellphilm screening events provided an opportunity for teachers and youth to learn from each other, even as it contributed to a more nuanced response to the teaching that addresses HIV and AIDS.Item Open Access Community-based participatory video: exploring and advocating for girls' resilience(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Jefferis, Tamlynn C.; Theron, Linda C.Resilience studies typically privilege the views and assumptions of minority-world research. One way to circumvent this is through methodologies that give voice to the experiences of majority-world youth. Our aim in this article is to reflect critically on the use of community-based participatory video (CBPV) to understand and promote resilience processes in 28 black South African adolescent girls. The girls, aged from13 to19 years, were recruited by social workers and teachers collaborating with the South African Pathways to Resilience Project. The findings suggest that CBPV does champion participant-directed understandings of resilience. However, the findings also draw attention to the difficulties of realising the potential of the social change inherent in CBPV, and the complexity of stimulating deep reflection in the girl participants.Item Open Access Connecting with pre-service teachers’ perspectives on the use of digital technologies and social media to teach socially relevant science(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) Mudaly, Ronicka; Pithouse-Morgan, Kathleen; Singh, Shakila; Mitchell, Claudia; Van Laren, LindaAs an interdisciplinary team of educational researchers we explored pre-service science teachers’ perspectives on using digital technologies and social media to address socially relevant issues in science teaching. The rationale for teaching socially relevant science was embedded in the concept of renaiscience, thus underscoring the need for science to be perceived as a human activity. We drew on generational theory to consider the educational significance of digital technologies and social media. Two different activities were used to elicit the pre-service science teachers’ perspectives. First, we invited them to reflect on a digital animation that we had produced, and they highlighted the advantages of digital animation as a medium to communicate a socially relevant message more appealingly to the Millennial generation. We then engaged these pre-service teachers in a structured concept-mapping activity to consider how digital technologies and social media might be used to address social challenges in South Africa. They drew our attention to the affordances of digital technologies and social media as a means to facilitate critical thinking, cater for diverse learning styles, and make high-quality scientific knowledge more accessible. They highlighted that teaching socially relevant science using digital resources can be cheap, convenient, collaborative, and creative.Item Open Access Editorial: critical perspectives on digital spaces in educational research(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) De Lange, Naydene; Mitchell, Claudia; Moletsane, RelebohileAbstract not availableItem Open Access Seeing how it works: a visual essay about critical and transformative research in education(Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2015) De Lange, Naydene; Mitchell, Claudia; Moletsane, RelebohileAs visual researchers in the field of education we have initiated and completed numerous participatory projects using qualitative visual methods such as drawing, collage, photovoice, and participatory video, along with organising screenings and creating exhibitions, action briefs, and policy posters. Locating this work within a critical paradigm, we have used these methods with participants to explore issues relating to HIV and AIDS and to gender-based violence in rural contexts. With technology, social media, and digital communication network connections becoming more accessible, the possibilities of using visual participatory methods in educational research have been extended. However, the value of visual participatory research in contributing to social change is often unrecognised. While the power of numbers and words in persuasive and informative change is well accepted within the community of educational researchers, the power of the visual itself is often overlooked. In this visual essay, we use the visual as a way to shift thinking about what it means to do educational research that is transformative in and of itself. As an example we draw on our visual participatory work with 15 first-year women university students in the Girls Leading Change1 project to explore and address sexual violence at a South African university. We aim to illustrate, literally, the possibilities of using the visual, not only as a mode of inquiry, but also of representation and communication in education and social science scholarship.