The focus of this paper is on the contestations and dilemmas emergent in the higher education curriculum in a context of increasing processes of unbundling, digitisation and marketisation. The paper explores the notion of contestation through the theoretical lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. It points to illustrative examples of this…

What knowledge matters in health professions education is an issue of debate in the literature, foregrounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and informed by calls for students who are not only clinically competent, but also critically conscious of global health inequity. Building on this work, this paper explores what kinds of knowledge are legitimated…

This paper argues that curriculum decision-making in the South African University of Technology (UoT) environment is affected not only by industry and disciplinary demands, but also by socio-structural features and ideologies particular to this educational sector. It supports the view that recontextualisation processes are subject to multiple…

This study investigated context-dependency of learning as an indicator for students' potential to continue learning after graduation. We used Maton's theoretical concepts of "cumulative" and "segmented" learning, and "semantic gravity", to look for context-independent learning in students' assessments in a Journalism…

The teaching of classical Greek dramas is integral to drama education at the University of Pretoria. In the past few years these dramas increasingly faced the danger of becoming "foreign"/irrelevant to modern day students. The introduction of performance practice to teach these dramas brought a whole new dimension to teaching and…

This paper explores the dynamics surrounding the formation of academic identities in a context where the nature of academic work is contested both as a result of tensions within the discipline and in response to pressure from both the institution and the field of higher education. It is based on a case study which investigated the process of…