Department of Educational Psychology

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Browsing Department of Educational Psychology by browse.metadata.advisor "Carolissen, R."

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    Evaluating the scholarship on inclusion as a value in Community Educational Psychology: A journal content analysis
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Mohamed-Ryklief, Raeesa; Carolissen, R.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Educational Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The value of inclusion is core to both the fields of community psychology and inclusive education, as reflected in an emerging area known as community educational psychology. This study examined the trends in South African psychology and education journals that publish work in the area of community educational psychology. Additionally, the study also aimed to explore the content and method trends in community educational psychology research. A content analysis was conducted and the titles and abstracts of articles published between 2013 - 2017 in three prominent South African journals were reviewed. The three journals, namely the South African Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of Psychology in Africa, and Perspectives in Education were explored through this process with the aim of establishing to what extent the concepts of “inclusion” and “inclusive education” were reflected in the literature, and exactly in which way they were discussed. Establishing how these concepts were researched and explored by other researchers provided some insight into how these concepts were understood, applied, and in which ways the research around them was evolving. After careful review, 14 of the 1 167 titles and abstracts reviewed qualified the article to be included in this study. When the 14 articles were analysed, the emergent themes were categorised into two broad categories: i) educational-related themes and ii) social-related themes. Within these broad categories 13 sub-themes including teacher education/development, access to education, inclusive education, curriculum development, education and policy reform, and development fell under the broad theme of education-related. The social-related themes included diversity, inclusion, gender, social change, social development, exclusion, equity, and transformation. The theme of inclusion was the most predominant theme which is encouraging considering that it was the lens through which this research was considered. This study confirms definitional ambiguity on the concept of inclusion in the field of community educational psychology and inclusive education. It also showed that there is a preference for qualitative studies in the field. This study shows the value of considering two closely related fields that share values and how systems of knowledge can be amassed and evaluated through considering the contribution of fields through the joint values that they share.