An exploration of African-student agency: Placing students from historically disadvantaged communities at the centre

Q3 Social Sciences Perspectives in Education Pub Date : 2023-12-13 DOI:10.38140/pie.v41i4.6891
D. Larey
{"title":"An exploration of African-student agency: Placing students from historically disadvantaged communities at the centre","authors":"D. Larey","doi":"10.38140/pie.v41i4.6891","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"At the national universities within South Africa, various events during the past years indicate that students suffer under different kinds of oppression. It is widely acknowledged that students from poor, rural geographical areas find the university space alienating and not speaking to their life worlds. In this paper I respond to Fataar’s (2019) notion of the “misrecognised” university student in the South African context. My focus on students coming from historically disadvantaged communities aims to contribute to ongoing debates about social justice for students in the university sector. The problem to be addressed in this paper is the misalignment between the critical horizontal knowledge ofhistorically disadvantaged students and the knowledge codes of the university relating to learning, curriculum, and pedagogical practices. I therefore argue that if university institutional practices recognise, embrace, and align with students’ agency, resilience and adaption, a reframed institutional platform could engage students in their intellectual becoming. Furthermore, I am guided by two questions: 1) How can students from historically disadvantaged communities use their critical horizontal knowledges to connect with disciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge of the university to enhance critical specialised consciousness in the becoming of ethical humans? and 2) How can an African theorisation of student agency form the basis to consciously reframe the core institutional function of the university? In responding to these questions, I locate my arguments in African-student agency, reviewing literature by African scholars to gain an understanding of the African concept of student agency.","PeriodicalId":19864,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives in Education","volume":"63 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives in Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.38140/pie.v41i4.6891","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

At the national universities within South Africa, various events during the past years indicate that students suffer under different kinds of oppression. It is widely acknowledged that students from poor, rural geographical areas find the university space alienating and not speaking to their life worlds. In this paper I respond to Fataar’s (2019) notion of the “misrecognised” university student in the South African context. My focus on students coming from historically disadvantaged communities aims to contribute to ongoing debates about social justice for students in the university sector. The problem to be addressed in this paper is the misalignment between the critical horizontal knowledge ofhistorically disadvantaged students and the knowledge codes of the university relating to learning, curriculum, and pedagogical practices. I therefore argue that if university institutional practices recognise, embrace, and align with students’ agency, resilience and adaption, a reframed institutional platform could engage students in their intellectual becoming. Furthermore, I am guided by two questions: 1) How can students from historically disadvantaged communities use their critical horizontal knowledges to connect with disciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge of the university to enhance critical specialised consciousness in the becoming of ethical humans? and 2) How can an African theorisation of student agency form the basis to consciously reframe the core institutional function of the university? In responding to these questions, I locate my arguments in African-student agency, reviewing literature by African scholars to gain an understanding of the African concept of student agency.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
探索非洲学生的能动性:将历史上处境不利社区的学生置于中心位置
在南非的国立大学里,过去几年发生的各种事件表明,学生们遭受着不同形式的压迫。人们普遍认为,来自贫困农村地区的学生认为大学空间与他们的生活世界格格不入。在本文中,我回应了法塔尔(2019)关于南非背景下 "被误解 "的大学生的概念。我关注来自历史上处于不利地位社区的学生,旨在为正在进行的关于大学学生社会公正的辩论做出贡献。本文要解决的问题是,历史上处于不利地位的学生的关键横向知识与大学有关学习、课程和教学实践的知识规范之间的错位。因此,我认为,如果大学的制度实践承认、接受并与学生的能动性、复原力和适应力保持一致,那么一个重新构建的制度平台就能让学生参与到他们的知识成长过程中。此外,我还提出了两个问题:1)来自历史上处于不利地位社区的学生如何利用他们的批判性横向知识与大学的学科和跨学科知识相联系,在成为有道德的人的过程中增强批判性专业意识?在回答这些问题时,我将我的论点定位在非洲-学生代理上,通过回顾非洲学者的文献来了解非洲的学生代理概念。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
Perspectives in Education
Perspectives in Education Social Sciences-Education
CiteScore
1.50
自引率
0.00%
发文量
20
审稿时长
12 weeks
期刊介绍: Perspectives in Education is a professional, refereed journal, which encourages submission of previously unpublished articles on contemporary educational issues. As a journal that represents a variety of cross-disciplinary interests, both theoretical and practical, it seeks to stimulate debates on a wide range of topics. PIE invites manuscripts employing innovative qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches including (but not limited to) ethnographic observation and interviewing, grounded theory, life history, case study, curriculum analysis and critique, policy studies, ethnomethodology, social and educational critique, phenomenology, deconstruction, and genealogy. Debates on epistemology, methodology, or ethics, from a range of perspectives including postpositivism, interpretivism, constructivism, critical theory, feminism, post-modernism are also invited. PIE seeks to stimulate important dialogues and intellectual exchange on education and democratic transition with respect to schools, colleges, non-governmental organisations, universities and technikons in South Africa and beyond.
期刊最新文献
Grade R teachers’ perceptions concerning parental participation in early literacy development in a disadvantaged context in the Western Cape An exploration of African-student agency: Placing students from historically disadvantaged communities at the centre A systematic review of the implications for teaching, learning and assessment at South African universities after the Covid-19 pandemic Self-Assessment Inclusion Scale (SAIS): a tool for measuring inclusive competence and sensitivity Investigating nomophobia as a possible mental health disorder in Gauteng public schools
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1