Department of Education Policy Studies

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Browsing Department of Education Policy Studies by browse.metadata.advisor "Azeem, Badroodien"

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    Discipline, power and knowledge at three schools in the Eastern Cape
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-01-03) Magaba, Temba Mxolisi; Azeem, Badroodien; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Across teaching careers that span decades, teachers often witness on a daily basis the collapsing of traditional modes of discipline and the emergence of new power dynamics founded on human rights and freedoms. These experiences are ingrained in teacher’s memories as practitioners in the teaching and learning terrain. This study was inspired by a desire to inquire and to uncover the complexities associated with discipline, knowledge and power. In that respect, the key idea that underpins the study is that school discipline is not about school ethos or what is expected to happen on the grounds of schools, but rather about the societal norms and values that hold sway for defined schools in specific areas at particular moments in their operations and which are used to hold learners accountable. As such, the study navigates discourses on discipline, power and knowledge in order to understand the underlying ideological motives for the kind of discipline practiced in three Eastern Cape schools. Different contexts are juxtaposed with power and knowledge with a view to answer questions related to the disciplinary tools teachers use to assert their dominance over learners. With regard to discipline itself, however, most teachers conceded that the concept and practice of school discipline went further than the crafting of a specific set of rules - that it entailed far more than the mayopic expression of dos and dont’s of the school’s code of conduct. There are broader and far more complex considerations of disciplinary practices in schools that needed to be explored. There is a void in the literature on school discipline which warrants a conceptual rethink of the basis of the very acts of discipline or forms of order in which they had previously been grounded. These are some of the phenomena that this research project sought to examine. In that respect, the study specifically sought to illustrate the issues in relation to the lives of “real teachers and learners”, and fieldwork therefore focused on teachers’ views of discipline at three schools in the Eastern Cape. Notably, the study also sought to highlight teacher practices in the rural context of Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, and teacher motives in dispensing discipline. The main goal was to learn more about the disempowering patterns of thinking and behaviours that may be engendered in pupils through the workings of discipline, power, and knowledge. The data revealed a range of discursive linguistic tools and techniques that teachers sought to use to constitute the habitual thought patterns of learners.