Doctoral Degrees (Education Policy Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Education Policy Studies) by browse.metadata.advisor "Joorst, Jerome"

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    Die opvoedkundige navigasiepraktyke van leerders in 'n landelike laerskoolkonteks in beleerde omstandighede
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Heynes, Kim; Fataar, Aslam; Joorst, Jerome; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Education reform has been negotiated in complex ways in the South African context for more than two decades. The history of education in South Africa forms an important part of our socialisation and life approaches as citizens of the country, but specifically as individuals embedded in various educational communities within specific geographical contexts. This study examines the educational navigation practices of five primary school learners in a Stellenbosch rural farm context. Their educational navigation practices were explored by focusing on their use of their cultural and educational resources, specially how they constructed their aspirant educational pathways amidst their impoverished family context on the farms and in their schools. Given the limitations that the farm context as a social and educational ‘field’ imposes on them, these learners use various techniques to mediate the harsh circumstances of their living environments. To explore these learners' mediation of their educational pathways, I draw on the theoretical tools provided by Pierre Bourdieu, especially his concepts 'field', 'habitus' and 'capital'. I proceed to show how the learners make habitus shifts in their constrained field that enable them to build learning identities to counteract the limitations of the field, thereby opening a viable, yet complex, educational path. The study on which this thesis was based is founded on a multi-spatial ethnographic and interpretive methodological approach. I explored how the learners continue to show agency despite the limitations set. These learners show that they are active mediators of their context. They are active collaborators and speak against the structures of their life contexts. The thesis argues that the learners were able to build an educational pathway for themselves as foot soldiers of a two decade-old apartheid differentiation.