Research Articles

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Human flourishing: An integrated systems approach to development post 2030
(Plus One, 2025) Bloch, Carole; Zwitter,Andrej; George, Ellis
This perspective article explores foundational shifts required for the conceptualization of future principles and goals to inform the starting re-negotiation process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) post-2030. Based on a multi-stakeholder consultation and workshop-based focus groups, this article emphasizes integrating non-material aspects of human flourishing, such as cultural, psycho-social, and community-based aspects, in addition to the current focus on material conditions (as represented in the SDGs). Given regional, cultural, religious and other specificities, these non-material aspects need to be based on localized goals and indicators that follow global principles. This in turn, we argue, requires the development of a multi-level governance framework to capture the full spectrum of societal health and human experience allowing for both top-down principle-based governance as well as bottom-up goal and indicator development. Key recommendations include: localized implementation by leveraging local and indigenous knowledge, and fostering adaptable development models rooted in local realities and global principles. This flourishing-based development approach aims to harmonize material conditions with non-material aspects of human flourishing as a process oriented integrated systems approach.
“I think I know it, but I’m not sure”: how pre-service teachers blend conceptual physics problems into solution frameworks
(South African Journal Of Education, 2025) Iwuanyanwu, Paul
The purpose with this study was to investigate the challenges faced by second-year pre-service teachers when integrating conceptual physics problems into solution frameworks. The main goal was to understand the complexities involved in this integration process, specifically exploring how pre-service teachers drew upon different levels of knowledge taxonomy (factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive) and the difficulties they encountered at each level when blending conceptual problems into solution frameworks. By categorising the difficulties encountered into minor (D1), major (D2), and atypical (D3) challenges, I aimed to shed light on the effectiveness of different teaching approaches in addressing these challenges. To evaluate pre-service teacher performance, I employed a pre- and post-test control-group design to compare 2 learning conditions: traditional lecture-based instruction and the SPSE (situation, problem, solution, evaluation) blended model in a 6-week advanced physics course for pre-service teachers. Pre-test and post-test data were collected using the conceptual physics problems test (CPPT), and written responses to blended conceptual problems were graded using a moderated memorandum and analysed quantitatively. The results provide evidence of the effectiveness of the SPSE blended model. In particular, performance on tasks categorised as D2 and D3 improved significantly among pre-service teachers who followed the SPSE blended model compared to those who followed the lecture-based approach. However, I found no significant differences in performance on tasks designated as D1 between the two groups. This suggests that while the blended model enhances learning for solving certain types of conceptual problems, it may not universally apply to all types of tasks. Further investigation may be necessary to understand the nuances of how different learning models impact the blending of conceptual physics problems into solution frameworks among pre-service teachers
Wild sea swimming as a slow intimacy: towards reconfiguring scholarship
(Lectito, 2024) Bozalek, Vivienne; Shefer, Tamara
Our oceanic swimming-writing-reading together practice coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and subsequent lockdown in South Africa. Awash with vulnerability, precarity, and isolation, oceanic swimming-writing-reading became one of the few ways in which we, as three academics from different higher education institutions, found respite in a practice of care for ourselves and others. Curious as to whether swimming and free writing could materialise alternative creative scholarly practices, we began to meet regularly to swim, write, read and think together with theoretical perspectives that subscribe to a feminist relational ontology. This article turns to visual and written narratives generated during this period and building on them, considers health and wellbeing at both subjective and planetary levels. Our global southern location articulates with these themes in very particular ways – access, risk and embodiment in relation to seas, beaches and littoral zones. South Africa remains haunted by the continuing geopolitical effects of its slave, colonial, apartheid, and neoliberal past and current contexts of global capitalism that seep into encounters with the ocean. Our swimming-writing-thinking is a reminder of our relationalities with and response-abilities for the hydrocommons as the measure of human, other species and the planet’s capacity to survive and flourish.
Exploring the injustices perpetuated by unfamiliar languages of learning and teaching: the importance of multi-angle, learner-focused research
(Routledge, 2024) Adamson, Laela; Desai, Zubeida
This paper argues for the importance of foregrounding learners’ experiences in language-in-education research, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and other postcolonial contexts where there is an unfamiliar language of learning and teaching. Standing firmly on the shoulders of decades of research that compellingly demonstrates a range of ways in which the use of an unfamiliar language is detrimental to classroom practice and learning outcomes, we suggest that there are yet further negative consequences that are currently under-researched. We argue that combining observation of learners with methods that create space for learners to explain their experiences in their own words enables important new insights into how epistemic injustices intersect with broader structural injustices in learners’ lives. Our proposition is informed by our work and research in a variety of contexts but draws most heavily from qualitative research conducted with young people in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa. Our conclusions demonstrate how learner-focused research could importantly and beneficially extend the evidence base that is available to support calls for changes to language-in-education policy and practice.
Simple climate models that can be used in primary, secondary, and tertiary education
(American Chemical Society, 2024) Harrison, Timothy; Davies-Coleman, Michael; Shallcross, Dudley
Climate change is of great concern to all age groups but in particular to children. “Simple” climate models have been in place for a long time and can be used effectively with post-16students. For younger children, modifications are required, and we describe in this paper the development and use of two such models. The first (the Granny Model) is a pictorial version of the model that has been used extensively with primary and early secondary school aged children (14 and younger). The second is an online version of the simple climate model that can be used without recourse to the underpinning mathematics and science but allows children to experiment with changing variables and how these changes affect the average surface temperature of the Earth.
Special issue: CSTL in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Routledge, 2025) Pather, Sulochini; Msiza, Vusi; Pillay, Jace
This special issue is overdue, given the adoption of the CSTL framework (CSTL Regional Steering Committee 2015) in the SADC region since 2008. Many questions have been asked about the extent to which the CSTL framework has been successful in engendering a strong system of care and support for learners in schools. We begin by providing an oversight of CSTL, when and why it was adopted in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and what it hopes to achieve in the development of inclusive schools. We then provide an overview of the 6 articles included in this special issue. The care and support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL) framework emerged as a response to the complex barriers preventing vulnerable children in South Africa from accessing quality education which is a crucial to SDG 4. Despite several policy reforms since post- 1994, vulnerable children across the country face challenges in accessing, completing and succeeding in education. In 2008, the CSTL framework was formally adopted by 14 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states and subsequently launched in 2010 at the SADC Education ministers’ meeting. CSTL was developed to provide a comprehensive, overarching structure to coordinate implementation efforts, enabling the delivery of integrated care and support in schools under the leadership of the Department of Basic Education. The main aim of the CSTL framework is to create schools that function as inclusive centres of care, learning and support. The intention is to strengthen protective factors in schools to promote children’s well-being and reduce risk factors. CSTL aims to create, amongst others, schools that build on the strengths of learners and educators and have appropriate infrastructure with good water and sanitation. It also aims to create safe, supportive schools, primarily through a range of services that are discrimination-free, involve parents and caregivers, and work through partnerships with multiple stakeholders.
Ubuntu in post-apartheid South Africa: educational, cultural and philosophical considerations
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), 2024) Patel, Mahmoud; Mohammed, Tawffeek; Koen, Raymond
Ubuntu has been defined as a moral quality of human beings, as a philosophy or an ethic, as African humanism, and as a worldview. This paper explores these definitions as conceptual tools for understanding the cultural, educational, and philosophical landscape of post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this understanding is the Althusserian concept of state apparatus. Louis Althusser divides the state apparatus into two forces: the repressive state apparatus (RSA); and the ideological state apparatus (ISA). RSAs curtail the working classes, predominately through direct violence or the threat of violence, whereas ISAs function primarily by ideology, including forms of organised religion, the education system, family units, legal systems, trade unions, political parties, and media. This paper discusses the link between increasing inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and education, with specific reference to Althusser’s ISAs and the abuse of Ubuntu as a subterfuge for socio-economic inequality.
Enhancing schools’ responsibility for promoting health and wellbeing from a pro-active, transformative perspective: a participatory-process-orientated approach
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) Kitching, Ansie Elizabeth
In the Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL) Conceptual Policy Framework, an integrative framework for the development of inclusive, rights-based schools, health promotion is identified as a key priority area. In the South African context, health promotion in schools has been foregrounded since 1999 and in 2012 the Integrated School Health Policy was developed. The application of the whole-school approach has made a valuable contribution to address health issues and create awareness of preventative interventions. However, schools are not equipped to take responsibility for the promotion of health and wellbeing from a pro-active and transformative perspective. In response to this limitation, participatory action research was conducted to establish how the the development of a holistic school wellbeing (HSWB) process aimed at enhancing health and wellbeing from a pro-active and transformative perspective, enabled six South African schools to sustain this process over a period of seven years. In this article, the development of the HSWB process is described and presented as as a basis for indicating what a participatory- process-orientated approach aimed at enhancing schools’ responsibility to promote health and wellbeing from a pro-active transformative perspective, could encompass.
Shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference: A collaborative reflective perspective on conceptual disruption
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Pather, Subethra; Govender, Rosaline; Scholtz, Desiree
The move from the traditional academic conference format to a loosely defined format of unconference can be contentious and spark a robust debate on the conceptual disruption of conferencing. As part of HELTASA’s strategic plan of re-structuring and re-imagining its vision and purpose, it initiated a new way of conferencing; participant-driven and participant-focused. Through self-reflective written narratives, this paper explores three academic development practitioners' experiences in planning and reflecting on the HELTASA’s (un)conference. We share our accounts of (un)conference as a conceptual disruption to the traditional conference format, concepts, and ways of doing and being. Qualitative data were collected from the three written narratives through a collective descriptive autoethnography research design and methodology. The insights collected are applied to the Conceptual Disruption Framework which proposes a tripartite framework for conceptual disruption, which distinguishes conceptual disruptions occurring at three levels (individual concepts, clusters of concepts, conceptual schemes), taking on two forms (conceptual gaps, conceptual conflicts), and leading to three distinct levels of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Using this framework, we describe our personal thoughts and perspectives in engaging with the novel approach of (un)conferencing. We probe into the potential of collaborative reflection to gain deeper insights and understanding of our shift from a traditional academic conference to a HELTASA (un)conference. We explore the discomfort, displacement, and learnings of the intentional disruption of our conceptual understanding of (un)conference practices. This paper highlights our shifting mindsets as we reflect and interrogate our thoughts and perspectives on the conceptual framing of (un)conferencing.
Acid attacks and epistemic (in)justice: violence, everyday resistance and hermeneutical responsibilities in the Indian Hindi film Chhapaak
(Wiley, 2024) Pal, Payel; Karmakar, Goutam
By taking into consideration films as a method of dissemination of knowledge, the article examines the relationship between epistemic change, an understanding of epistemic injustice, and the prior epistemic convictions of characters, as well as everyday resistance, in the film Chhapaak, translated as Splash, an Indian Hindi-language biographical drama film that portrays the life of Laxmi Agarwal, a survivor of an acid attack. The first section of the article contextualizes the story of the film through the trajectories of acid attacks in India. This is followed by discussions on epistemic injustice and collective wrongdoing through the lived realities of acid attack victims and survivors as depicted in the film. The article also highlights how these individuals exhibit everyday resistance and strive to bring about transformation in society. The article concludes with discussions on the epistemic, socio-cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities of people that can make society a safe place for all, especially girls and women in India. The article concludes by examining the epistemic, socio-cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities that individuals must undertake in order to create a secure environment for all members of society, with a particular focus on girls and women in India.
Preferred problem-solving methods employed by grade 4 learners for measurement word problems
(AOSIS Publishing, 2024) Govender, Rajendran; Adendorff, Stanley A.; Rawoot, Shabbeer
Background: Problem-solving as a vehicle to develop independent thinking skills is mostly underestimated and is often either overlooked or not given adequate attention within the existing South African mathematics curriculum. Consequently, numerous learners often display limited skills or lack skills to adequately crack Mathematics problems by applying methods put forward in class. This generally results in under-achievement. Aim: This study aims to explore and emphasise the problem-solving methods applied by Grade 4 learners involved in solving measurement word problems, and to reveal what transpires when the selected learners apply these methods to arrive at meaningful solutions. Setting: Data were collected from a class of 42 Grade 4 learners at a primary school in Cape Town South Africa. Learners were conveniently selected. Methods: A qualitative case study research design was adopted.
Exodontia curriculum evaluation: fit for purpose teaching and learning strategies
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2024) Behardien, Nashreen; Titus, Simone; Roman, Nicolette V.
Introduction: Curriculum review is crucial for ensuring health professions education programs remain responsive and relevant. Teaching and learning (T&L) strategies facilitate knowledge acquisition, with traditional methods being supplemented by innovative techniques in a blended curriculum. This study evaluated an Exodontia Block Course (EBC) focused on tooth extraction skills, utilizing a blended-learning approach across three learning environments: classroom, preclinical skills laboratory, and clinical training platform. Methods: A qualitative study employed appreciative inquiry for data collection and analysis. Focus group discussions were conducted with 30 participants: 13 undergraduate students, 10 clinical teachers, and 7 dental practitioners. Data underwent coding and thematic analysis. Results: Two main themes relevant to this paper emerged: “Block course structure” and “Recommendations for improvement.” Participants affirmed the blended-learning approach, highlighting strengths like demonstrations, videos, activity workbooks, and assessments that supported learning. Recommendations included integrating more visual technologies, simulated patients, peer-learning, debriefing, case reviews, community-based learning, and dedicated skills laboratories. Discussion: While the traditional course adequately achieved its objectives, opportunities for enhancement were identified. Incorporating advanced educational technologies, simulation-based activities, and structured feedback mechanisms could optimize skills development. Real-world clinical experiences and peer-assisted learning may reinforce knowledge and foster competencies like clinical reasoning. Continued curriculum refinement through stakeholder feedback is essential for delivering effective, student-centered dental education, and by inference, improved patient care.
Forgotten women in education: A narrative inquiry into the marginalisation of ECD practitioners
(AOSIS (Pty) Ltd, 2024) Aploon-Zokufa, Kaylianne
Background: South African narratives of and by early childhood development (ECD) practitioners often focus on policies, practices and perspectives in research. While these are important for the development of the field, the voices of ECD practitioners, in this marginalised space, are silent. Aim: This article aims to understand: Who are the ECD practitioners? What are the conditions of their lives and livelihoods? How do they negotiate opportunities for employment, socio-economic growth and further education and training? Setting: The study describes the marginality of ECD practitioners by narrating the lived experience of work and post-school education and training of one mature woman in the Western Cape. By narrating a single story, the stories of others unfold; working in similar circumstances and negotiating the same opportunities in the harsh reality of poverty and oppression. Employing a narrative methodology is a commitment to decolonising the practice of research, where voices of the ‘Other’ are centralised and amplified. Methods: An intersectional lens forms the theoretical grounding for this article with life history interviews as its primary form of data collection. Results: Adult women ECD practitioners are mainly poor, black and female. They pursue access into higher education to improve their lives and livelihoods. Conclusion: The intersections that shape their lives limit their opportunities for access and success. Contribution: The power of narrative research, displayed in this article, ensures that voice is used to move the lived experiences of black women ECD practitioners from the margins to the centre.
Towards a critical ecological ontology: literacy, sustainability, and fostering environmental education through the Indian green informational picturebook
(Routledge, 2024) Karmakar, Goutam
It is widely acknowledged through various studies that comprehending the environment and sustainability can help children cultivate curiosity, insights, and ethical ideals, facilitating ways of enhancing public environmental literacy and leading to a more sustainable future. Environmental education in early childhood has substantial positive effects on social, economic, wellness, and educational elements, aiding in the growth of children’s abilities to become responsible young citizens. The present article examines how green informational picturebooks in India can cultivate eco-consciousness in young readers and support environmental children’s literature, motivating them to protect the earth and recognise their responsibility in environmental issues as adults. Taking Jeyanthi Manokaran’s Chipko Takes Root (2015) as a point of exploration and intervention, the article illustrates how a picturebook like this can be implemented as a means of communication for environmental protection. For this, the article emphasises how the book indulges in a streamlined recounting of the Chipko movement, incorporates regional stories, and uses effective visual representations as tools to elevate awareness about environment and sustainability among children.
Theorising student activism in and beyond twentieth century Europe: the contribution of Philip G Altbach
Luescher-Mamashela, Thierry
For most of the second half of the twentieth century, Philip Altbach has followed, analysed and theorised student activism in Europe, North America, India and beyond, and become the foremost scholar on the topic. This chapter critically reviews Altbach’s work on student activism (1964 – 2006) and his efforts at developing a comparative theoretical understanding of student activism in terms of its causes, organisation, ideological orientation and outcomes, along with the backgrounds and identity of student activists, the importance of national and institutional contexts and historical conjunctures in the emergence of student activism and in the response of national and university governments to student protest. The chapter takes Altbach’s thinking on student politics and activism and most recent theoretical contributions on changes in European higher education governance and student representation at system and institutional level to consider four questions: Under what conditions does student activism emerge? What are the typical characteristics of student organisations/movements? What are the typical characteristics of student activists? What are the effects of student activism? In so doing, testable propositions for theorising student activism in, and beyond, twentieth century Europe are developed. The paper thereby challenges Altbach’s own assertion that “student activism lacks any overarching theoretical explanation” (1991: 247).
‘I can easily switch to the kazakh language, also to the Russian language’: reimagining kazakhstani CLIL implementation as a third space
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2024) Simons, Marius; Bedeker, Michelle; Ospanbek, Assylzhan
There is extensive CLIL research on stakeholders’ practices, integration of content and language, and pedagogies. However, limited studies report on teachers’ pre-existing knowledge before CLIL implementation and how it influences their classroom pedagogy. Using a third space frame, this study examined CLIL implementation in Kazakhstan. It included 15 science teachers who teach science through the English medium of instruction (EMI). A hybrid coding strategy was followed to analyze questionnaires, teachers’ science lessons, multimodal teaching-based scenarios, and semi-structured interviews. Our findings revealed that teachers’ CLIL implementation was guided by their (1) hybrid beliefs about scientific knowledge and learning, (2) humanising pedagogy, (3) shift to constructivist science pedagogy, and (4) hybrid linguistic stance. We conclude that a third-space perspective diverts the gaze from CLIL teachers’ challenges to illuminate the entanglement of teachers’ epistemic stance, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and linguistic stance as emergent discursive practices when policy borrowings connect global and local epistemologies.
Implementation of an intervention program to enhance student teachers’ active learning in transformation geometry
(SAGE Publications Inc, 2023) Mbusi, Nokwanda; Luneta, Kakoma
Active learning strategies are purported to be effective in enhancing students’ understanding of concepts that would otherwise be difficult to master through other strategies of mediating learning. This study forms part of a bigger study where pre-service teachers’ errors and misconceptions in transformation geometry were identified, analyzed and then addressed. The focus of this current study is on exploring the implementation of a van Hiele phase-based instruction to address the students’ misconceptions through the facilitation of active learning. The instructional program was implemented with 82 pre-service teachers (student teachers) and field notes, observations and informal conversations with students were used to collect data during the implementation. A test was then given at the end of the intervention to determine the effect of the intervention on student performance. Findings suggest active learning can be promoted, through the use of van Hiele phase-based intervention program, to address effectively students’ misconceptions.
Mapping higher education policymaking in Ghana with aquadruple helix framework
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Ansah, Francis; Swanzy, Patrick; Langa, Patrício
Whilst research works have identified many actors involved inhigher education public policymaking in the Ghanaian context,there is a paucity of empirical studies on how the application of aquadruple helix network of policy actors considered essentialconstituents of higher education provision could create addedvalue to strengthen the policymaking ecosystem in Ghana. Usingmultiple data collection techniques including, document analysis,in-depth interviews and analytic memoing, this paper examinesdeeper insights into higher education public policymaking inGhana from the perspective of a quadruple helix framework ofpolicymaking and argues for an added value in the use ofquadruple helix framework in higher education policymaking.
The affective effect: exploring undergraduate students’ emotions in giving and receiving peer feedback
(Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 2023) Bharuthram, S; van Heerden, M
While the peer feedback process has an important role to play in student learning and has many benefits, it is not without its challenges. One of these is the effect that emotions may have on the way that students engage with the feedback. Yet, the specific emotions experienced during peer feedback is relatively under-explored. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative study unpacks the range of emotions experienced by students during peer feedback. Using Plutchnik’s Wheel of Emotions to analyze students’ questionnaire responses, the study found that students largely exhibited positive emotions, which may be due to their perceptions of themselves in relation to the process, as well as the various scaffolds put in place. Knowing which emotions students experienced during peer feedback may enable a greater understanding of the role of emotions in peer feedback, as well as enabling student feedback literacy development.
Keeping sites in sight: Conversations with teachers about the design of toolkits peculiar to a continuous professional development initiative
(AOSIS, 2019) Gierdien, Faaiz; Smith, Charles; Julie, Cyril
The aim of this article is to shift the notion of ‘sites’ as places of work peculiar to continuous professional development (CPD) to a theoretical level, independent of, yet intimately connected to, their physical meanings, for example universities and schools. Most CPD initiatives have to contend with at least one of these two sites, in which university-based mathematics educators and school teachers can have different and at times overlapping ways of talking about the same mathematics. Using research on number and operations, non-visually salient rules in algebra and algebraic fractions, and analytic tools and notions peculiar to conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, the authors identify and analyse site-related issues in the design of particular problem sets in Grade 8 and Grade 9 toolkits and related conversations between a mathematics educator and participating teachers. The article concludes with the implications of ‘keeping in sight’ ways in which universities and schools talk and work when it comes to designing and discussing toolkits.

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