Prof. Zubeida Desai

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https://hdl.handle.net/10566/2215

Prof. Zubeida Desai

Position: Dean
Faculty: Faculty of Education
Qualifications: Prof Desai holds a BA in English, History and Anthropology from the University of London, a Higher Diploma in Education from the University of South Africa, and an MA in Language and Literature in Education from the Institute of Education, London. She earned her PhD in Education from UWC with the title of her PhD being A case for mother tongue education?
My publications in this repository
More about me: here
Tel: 021-9592649
Fax: 021-9592647
Email: zdesai@uwc.ac.za

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    Inducting BEd Hons students into a research culture and the world of research: the case of a research methods course in the BEd Hons programme
    (Unisa Press, 2013) Thaver, Beverley; Holtman, Lorna; Julie, Cyril
    It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons) programme have diverse professional backgrounds and personal motivations for pursuing the programme. Moreover, the majority of the students have fairly substantial experience in schools, one of the primary empirical sites for educational research. This diverse student profile yields several challenges in relation to the teaching of a Research Methods course. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of offering a BEd Hons course to induct students into research against the traditional, literature-renditioned components which comprise the practice of research in the Social Sciences. Working with the notions of critical aspects and encounters, the authors found that students experience a tension between their desire to solve their identified research problems in a common-sense way and a teaching interaction that moves them to an abstract/theoretical level. In light of this, the authors identify that students experience difficulty with shifting their strong beliefs about knowing the answers (in terms of their research), to notions of doubt. Each of these beliefs marks different academic cultures that respectively refer to, on the one hand, a teaching practice-supervisor and, on the other, a participant observer inquirer. The depth and richness of their experiences in the former tends to constrain the transition from predetermined answers to a curiosity driven mode.
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    Local languages: good for the informal marketplace but not for the formal classroom?
    (Taylor & Francis, 2013) Desai, Zubeida
    The maxim that ‘Languages develop through use, particularly in high domains such as education and the courts’ was propagated by Neville Alexander. He was committed to ‘intellectualising African languages’. In the spirit of his legacy, this article makes a case for using local languages, also referred to as mother tongues, as mediums of instruction. In making this case, two interrelated perspectives on the role of African languages in the broader society, are critiqued. The first perspective argues that languages evolve on their own, and calls for a multilingualism from below. The second perspective is critical of the term ‘mother tongue’, and by implication mother-tongue education. The article also critically examines language in education developments in South Africa, in particular the 1997 Language in Education Policy. It argues that one of the reasons for poor learner performance is current language practices, where the language of instruction shifts abruptly to English at the beginning of Grade 4. Examples of learner performance are given from a study the author conducted in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape. The term ‘mother tongue’ is defined in relation to these critiques. The article concludes by stating that current practices in South Africa continue to privilege English- and Afrikaans-speaking pupils. Drawing on the work of Alexander and others, it argues that linguistic practices from below, regardless of how innovative they are, cannot change power dynamics in unequal societies such as South Africa. It is only when languages are used in high domains such as education that they develop fully.