Brigitte Smit

Teachers, Local Knowledge, and Policy Implementation A Qualitative Policy-Practice Inquiry

How can teachers’ understandings of policy as local knowledge inform policy implementation in schools? This article investigates policy understanding and implementation in urban primary schools and locates the inquiry in the transitional South African context. The author illustrates teachers’ understandings of policy in times of transition and shows how such local knowledge affects policy implementation. She argues that although teachers play an important role in our education system, more often than not, they are a silent voice during policy formulation, which implies that local knowledge might be underplayed, discounted, or simply ignored. She discusses the contextual background and how qualitative inquiry can shape and inform policy implementation. The article presents a conceptual framework for policy implementation and thrashes out what policy may learn from teachers at the microlevels, that is, local knowledge. The author discusses the empirical data and the understandings of teachers of policy and concludes with a few implications for policy implementation.

A Conversation of Teachers: In Search of Professional Identity

The authors describe teacher professional identity as lived experience in the context of educational change. Adopting activity theory and its genesis in cultural historical theory (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004) as a framework, the article discusses the way teachers see themselves as professionals and how they compose their identities in schools, the educational space, which is their workplace. Activity theory is utilised as the broad theoretical lens and the design type and methodology are discussed accordingly. The school and the classroom are activity systems (Engeström, 1991), and social and semiotic ecosystems (Lemke, 1995). It is therefore in the tensions within the activity system that we capture and represent a constructed teacher conversation, composed of the voices of three social actors on an imaginary social stage, which is the empirical text of the article. Main findings speak to multiple roles, struggling voice and forging professional identity in the changing educational landscape.

Finding Academic Voice : A Critical Narrative of Knowledge-Making and Discovery

The narrative in this discussion article portrays the quest by two researchers to find their scholarly identity in their craft. The central issue in this narrative piece as design type of this inquiry is the space of knowledge crafting— distinguishing between adopted knowledge from the theories that sustain our thinking and the realities that they encounter in the research fields where knowledge grows in dynamic ecosystems that they wish to engage with and try to explicate and to understand. The central conundrum or the academic puzzle in this narrative is thus that they receive mixed messages about the interface between them, the researchers, the presented empirical world, and the theories from which they have learned. They are not sure where or when they speak in their own voices or portray their own identities.

Profiling classroom reading comprehension development practices from the PIRLS 2006 in South Africa

The South African 2006 and 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) findings continue to highlight major concerns about the quality of reading literacy teaching in primary schools. Of specific concern is the lack of representation of the sampled South African learners at the PIRLS international benchmarks, revealing a distinct lack of their development of thinking and reasoning abilities for reading comprehension. To shed light on potential reasons for learners’ reading comprehension difficulties, this article presents selected findings on teachers’ reading comprehension development practices emanating from the investigation of one KwaZulu-Natal and five Gauteng province case study schools from the national South African PIRLS 2006 Grade 4 sample. These cases represented a range of educational contexts across the South African PIRLS 2006 performance continuum and were sampled according to class average achievement aligned to the PIRLS international benchmarks and further South African benchmarks lower on the achievement scale. The findings juxtaposing teaching practices for reading comprehension development from case study schools with achievement profiles at the PIRLS international benchmarks against those of case study schools with less than optimal achievement at benchmarks lower on the achievement scale speak to key teaching and learning areas, which still need attention in terms of curriculum policy and teachers’ implementation thereof. Keywords : classroom practices, literacy, PIRLS, qualitative case studies, reading comprehension

PhD Capacity-Building, from Aid to Innovation: The SANPAD-SANTRUST Experience.

The article illustrates how the South Africa–Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), a doctoral research preparation programme for candidates on the African continent, evolved from an aid programme to an exemplary model of innovation, namely SANTRUST, an ownership-driven partnership within the framework of internationalization. This model of innovation includes a programme with a novel approach to focus on redress in South Africa, particularly for Black women researchers. The research design for this inquiry used an intrinsic case study, with interviews, observations and document analysis as data collection strategies. The case study revealed how SANTRUST, the innovation model, which is now the fully-fledged South-owned programme, sustained the SANPAD aid programme. The key finding revealed that SANTRUST in its relationship with research universities has matured into an example of sustainable national and international cooperation within a knowledge network paradigm.

Time to go back to the drawing board: organisation of primary school reading development in South Africa

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006 findings highlighted concerns about reading literacy teaching quality in South African primary schools (Howie et al., 2007). In response, the national Department of Education (DoE, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d) has emphasised instructional practice improvement. However, little emphasis has been placed on the role of school organisation in learners’ reading success or failure. This article presents school organisation findings from a mixed methods study that explored South African Grade 4 teachers’ instruction practices and schooling conditions for reading literacy development. The analysis considered is based on the reclassification of the PIRLS 2006 sample according to class achievement levels on the PIRLS benchmarks and instructional language profiles. Findings from the PIRLS 2006 school questionnaire data are reported together with findings from case studies to illustrate differences and similarities in school organisation for reading literacy across a range of low- and high-performing schools.

An Ethnographic Narrative of Hope for School Leadership in a Rural Educational Setting

Abstract This ethnographic narrative, which is theoretically framed by appreciative inquiry, attends to the life of a school principal in a rural school in South Africa. The aim of this longitudinal ethnographic narrative inquiry was to uncover the life of a school principal in a rural school to unmask how he makes meaning of his challenging role as a school principal. Observational and conversational data of how Nathaniel (pseudonym) sees himself as a professional and how he performs well, despite the taxing demands, which move beyond the context of what is traditionally known as school, are presented. The qualitative data analysis, using content and narrative analysis, revealed how a dedicated principal leads and manages pupils, staff, parents and the local community in a context of public scrutiny.

Teaching Atlas.ti™ in South Africa: Reflections on Doctoral Preparedness

Abstract Teaching qualitative data analysis using computer software such as Atlas.ti− to masters and doctoral students as well as university colleagues has presented a number of challenges together with moments of inspiration. The researcher has offered some brief reflective considerations, which have been conceptually located in postgraduate research and doctoral preparedness. Given the low number of PhD students who graduate in South Africa (SA), many scholars have inquired into the lack of progress of postgraduate research. Qualitative research, and in particular qualitative data analysis has not enjoyed structured support at universities, let alone computer assisted qualitative analysis support. Little is written in the qualitative data analysis literature about the impact and value of using Atlas.ti− in postgraduate work, particularly in the South African context. Therefore this reflective paper hopes to make some inroads into this field of study.

Editors’ Introduction to the Mixed Methods Manifesto Inaugural Special Issue

aDepartment of Educational Leadership, Sam Houston State University, TX, USA and Department of Educational Leadership and Management/Department of Educational Psychology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa; bDepartment of Instructional Systems Technology, Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University Bloomington, IN, USA; cDepartment of Counseling and Instructional Sciences, College of Education and Professional Studies, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA; dDepartment of Educational Leadership and Management, College of Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa; eDepartment of Psychology of Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa; fDepartment of Computer Science, Sam Houston State University, TX, USA

The experiences of school principals of teachers living with HIV

Since the discovery of HIV in the late 1980s, the pandemic has become the leading cause of death in South Africa. The present study was designed to explore the experiences of how school principals deal with HIV/AIDS-related issues affecting teachers in schools. Empirically, a narrative inquiry as design type, nested in social constructivism, was used, together with narrative interviews to elicit qualitative data. Theoretically, the inquiry was framed by transformational leadership and an ethics of care. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis, specifically descriptive, process and emotion codes, to theme the data. Key findings speak to inadequate leadership training for the sensitive educational landscape in South African schools, as well as lack of training and management skills to develop long-term strategies to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on teaching and learning.