Doctoral Degrees (Education Policy Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Education Policy Studies) by Author "Chiroma, Jane Adhiambo"

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    Democratic citizenship education and its implications for Kenyan higher education
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-12) Chiroma, Jane Adhiambo; Waghid, Yusef; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Violence in Kenya undermines the role of Kenyan higher education in the transition to democratic practices. This dissertation analyses democratic citizenship education (DCE) and its implications for Kenyan higher education. Higher education as used in this dissertation is centred on the university. The dissertation addresses the main research question, namely: How does a defensible deliberative conception of democracy help us to think differently about higher education in Kenya? This main research question is investigated using the following sub-questions: What space might there be for democratic citizenship education to help Kenyan higher education institutions address ethnic divisions in the country? How can democratic citizenship education in Kenyan higher education reshape ethnic identities and overcome ethnic tensions? Philosophy of education, as the approach used in this dissertation, enabled this research to reach its goal, which was to establish how DCE can help university education in Kenya resolve ethnic violence. In doing so, this dissertation argues that an extended view of liberal DCE – DCE in becoming – fits in with deconstruction as a reflexive paradox that retains the critical potential of DCE. Deconstruction potentially creates space for reimagining the possibilities of the university as a critical and democratic institution. Deconstruction as a method enabled this research potentially to claim openness in thinking about university education in Kenya to unforeseeable in becoming – being other than it currently is, so that it can contend with issues of ethnic violence in whatever singularity. This dissertation found that Kenyan higher education is already conceptualised in liberal DCE in a predetermined sense of belonging, although in a limited form, and that it is actualised, which means that it cannot resist violence. Therefore, a reconceptualised view of DCE in becoming is engendered in the potentialities of speech and thought and withholding rash judgment – as a way of curbing violence. Further, the findings demonstrate that DCE in becoming potentially can enable students and teachers to learn to think autonomously and to respect others with whom they co-belong. DCE in becoming potentially can contribute to the discourses and pedagogical encounters needed to cultivate responsible, relational, emancipative individual agency in becoming humans who respect and co-belong to the coming community.