Making the most of online or hybrid teaching platforms is essential to making sure that, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), higher education settings in developing universities and places are not left behind. While a number of the technological platforms adopted during the COVID-19 lockdown have the potential to reach more kids, they have…

This is an educational-philosophical, more particularly, a societal-theoretical reflection on the "blame game" that is occasionally played between the parental home and the school with respect to the behaviour displayed by children in these societal relationships. After consulting the literature regarding this issue, and the findings of…

Over the past few years, we have worked together in a citizen science project called "Diamonds on the Soles of our Feet" (see also Goldin et al. 2021, Goldin et al., 2023). In this project we engaged with 420 young learners in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. We came to see participating schools as collaborative ecosystems where…

Research surrounding classroom practice is changing the way principals, School Management Teams and teachers organise their learning spaces as well as their methods of teaching and learning. In this paper, we aim to explore teachers' experiences of an invitational learning environment in culturally diverse Foundation Phase classrooms. The paper…

Herein the argument advanced is that excellent shepherd leadership practices serve as a condition necessary for affording South African university students easy access to the required book chapters instead of enduring the burden of having to buy the full books. In order to embellish this viewpoint, relevant data were collected through focus group…

This article explores whether pedagogies of dialogue and care are evidenced in how lecturers engage online with their students in teaching and learning on Learning Management Systems (LMSes). Many lecturers in the online higher education landscape predominantly come from affluent educational habitus, whereas many students come from working-class…

This paper is based on the exploration of township preschool teachers' perspectives of the act of caring. Caring has always been associated with women as they are seen as nurturers. Their role as mothers is regarded as a natural part of their being. This study explored preschool teachers' understanding of caring as well as its implementation.…

Sometimes universities in general are criticised because of impersonal campus environments, or "academic incivility". However, research shows that this phenomenon is more common in medical schools, pointing to increased levels of stress and incidences of attempted suicide among medical students. The decay in humanitarian attitudes and…

South African higher education in the past year has seen violent calls for decolonisation of the curriculum, as a way of addressing the passive nature of education. The inability of the curriculum to respond to contextual issues, empower students to come of age, while at the same time remain committed to giving them a plurality of voices has been…

Behavioural problems are commonly experienced in schools. This contributes to poor academic results and general disciplinary problems, among other things. It is argued that punitive disciplinary methods are aggravating unacceptable behaviours. This paper presents information about the use of punishment, how children react to these measures, and…

This article discusses the work practices of the much neglected phenomenon of the work of school administrative clerks in schools. Popular accounts of school administrative clerks portray them as subjectified--assigned roles with limited power and discretion--as subordinate and expected to be compliant, passive and deferent to the principal and…

This article proposes a model for judging children's participatory parity in different social spaces. The notion of participatory parity originates in Nancy Fraser's normative theory for social justice, where it concerns the participatory status of adults. What, then, constitutes participatory parity for children? How should we judge the extent to…

Schools are obliged to support young women who become mothers. Drawing from an interview study of young women in a Durban school, this article shows how their experience is situated within discourses of shame and stigma. Such shame works to reduce their agency and increase their vulnerability to drop out of school. Both teachers and peers are…

A qualitative study was undertaken to explore the perceptions of youth regarding their wilderness rites of passage experience and its value for their lives. The researchers operated in an interpretive / constructivist paradigm and employed a qualitative research methodology. Participants were selected through purposive sampling, and individual…

We work with an approach which addresses one way we can engage with the past in order to better understand and engage with choices in the present. This approach is rooted in the exploration of historical case studies in order to explore the dilemmas and choices people face, and to examine the consequences of their responses. Using illustrations…