Juliet Perumal

Reading and Creating Critically Leaderful Schools that Make a Difference: The Post-Apartheid South African Case.

My interest in critical leaderful educational practices emanated from my experiences as a researcher in a South African National Department of Education project that piloted the White Paper on Inclusive Education Policy from 2001–2003 and in 2006 when I worked as a volunteer consultant with Twenty30, an independent, not for profit organization that works with schools in disadvantaged communities in Johannesburg, South Africa. Based on my work with the National Department of Education and Twenty30, in this paper I briefly sketch the profiles of Sunshine Primary and Dullsville Primary, two schools which operate within similar contexts of social fragmentation but which display two very different sets of behaviours. I sketch the legacy of racial segregation in South African schools and the resource infrastructural climate that characterized apartheid South African education. The sketch is meant to serve as a contextual background to understand the behavioural patterns of Sunshine Primary and Dullsville Primary in terms of how they negotiate the discriminatory apartheid script: one school which has resisted the negative script conferred upon it by apartheid and its legacy and the other school which has habitualized and internalized the debilitating script of apartheid engineering. Through reflection on the ethos of these two schools I conceptualized a proposed research project that I will conduct with a group of principals in Johannesburg, South Africa. The proposed study aims to explore how women school principals navigate the complexities of educational leadership in disadvantaged communities ravaged by HIV/Aids, poverty and child and woman abuse while also negotiating their status within the education fraternity that has historically relegated them to second‐class citizenship.

Student resistance and teacher authority: the demands and dynamics of collaborative learning

The intersection among discourses of curriculum, pedagogy, and power are increasingly becoming the focus of research and analysis in southern African classrooms as the effects of apartheid, colonialism, and patriarchalism are critiqued for their influences on epistemic and pedagogic policies and practices. This article draws on feminist research on pedagogy to examine the dynamics of teacher and student relations in southern African university classrooms. In particular, it focuses on student resistance to engaging in collaborative work and with radical ideologies in course content. Drawing on case studies it shows that, despite feminist teachers subscribing to egalitarian ideals, when they encounter student resistance to democratic pedagogic strategies and radical course content they resort to normalizing and regulatory postures that reinstate teacher authority in the classroom.

Female Principals Leading at Disadvantaged Schools in Johannesburg, South Africa.

South African democracy precipitated many changes and excavated many dormant issues, one of which was equity in the workplace. This extended into the sphere of education - a sector in which women were rarely seen in leadership positions. Following the implementation of several redress policies, women have managed to penetrate the gender equity barrier and assume leadership positions in schools. This article reports on a study that investigated how female principals experience leadership at schools in disadvantaged communities in the Gauteng East District, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Nesting itself within a qualitative research paradigm, the study explored ways in which women principals navigate gender and cultural challenges and highlights how stereotypes shape their leadership styles. Observations, field notes and semi-structured interviews were used to elicit data. These findings provide insight into the following themes: leadership styles; the principal as a curriculum leader; socio-economic profile of the school community and its impact on curriculum; balancing family and school responsibilities; and stakeholder participation and support.

Pedagogy of refuge: education in a time of dispossession

Despite its chequered history in relation to human rights issues, South Africa has been playing host to peoples displaced and dispossessed by geographies of anger and war, poverty, economic meltdown and other human rights atrocities. Perceiving South Africa as a sanctuary, there has been a steady wave of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees coming to the country in search of better personal and professional prospects. Qualified teachers have been among the sizeable cohort of professionals seeking a new home in South Africa. This article reports on qualitative research, which comprised a sample of seven refugee teachers. It provides pen portraits of their bio/geographical pre-flight, flight and settlement experiences as they emerged from individual interview data. The article draws on theoretical insights from postcolonial theory, deconstructionist conceptions of hospitality and critical feminist notions of communities of practice to explore the personal and professional experiences of these teachers who hold part-time employment at a private school. Some of the participants also hold temporary posts at public schools in Johannesburg. Proceeding from the contention that teachers frame their identities in relation to how they feel about themselves politically, professionally, and emotionally the article explores the dialectic of refugee teacher as a guest and a host in classrooms in a foreign country. It argues that notwithstanding the non-negotiable imperative that the rights of refugee children remain high on the national redress educational agenda; of equal importance is the necessity to be cognisant of refugee teachers who are teaching in the South African education system.

Enacting Critical Pedagogy in an Emerging South African Democracy Narratives of Pleasure and Pain

“Education Before Liberation” became the mantra of the struggle against apartheid oppression in South Africa. Apartheid policies predestined the Black majority to servitude and dehumanization. The advent of democracy heralded a plethora of transformative curriculum policies with the express intent to counter the destiny that the Apartheid regime had envisioned for the Black majority. The current curriculum canon which is premised on the tenets of critical pedagogy espouses the ideals of social justice and democracy, and embodies the intent to educate for liberation and social transformation. This article addresses the central question: How do the material tensions of enacting critical pedagogical tenets manifest in post-apartheid South African education through the narratives of educators as transformative intellectuals? In responding to this enquiry, in this article I will (a) sketch an analysis of teachers’ identities as enshrined in retrospective and current curriculum policies; and (b) draw on data from a qualitative study conducted at schools in Johannesburg, South Africa, to explore educators’ personal and professional narratives of pleasure and pain as they persevere in being transformative intellectuals within disadvantaged school communities in an emerging democracy. This article argues that if the ideals of democracy is central to the curriculum for students, then the education system needs to ensure that the personal and professional wellbeing of teachers should form an integral part of the human rights discourse.

Leading in disadvantaged Zimbabwean school contexts Female school heads’ experiences of emotional labour

This qualitative multiple case study explored the sources of emotional stress experienced by 12 female Zimbabwean primary heads leading in socio-economic disadvantaged schools in Masvingo District and their attempts to alleviate the challenges that the children from these disadvantaged contexts presented them with. Data was generated through individual semi-structured interviews, and observations and the data was analysed thematically to elicit the sources of their emotional labour that emanated from stress-related cultural and contextual factors. The study revealed that despite the school heads experiencing anxiety, pain, sorrow, sympathy, frustration, sadness, and concern they were happy about their appointments to leadership positions. The sources of their emotional stress were related to the plight of children; stereotypical gender expectations; lack of parental cooperation; and unrealistic professional and social expectations. The study suggests wellness recesses; the establishment of social networks through which heads could share their experiences; and professional development programmes on stress management as possible interventions that could help the heads deal with these stressful circumstances.

Responding with hospitality: Refugee children in the South African education system

ABSTRACTRefugees have remained a significant feature on the South Africa landscape and a concern in the country even prior to the advent of democracy. Since the advent of democracy in 1994, South Africa (SA) has received waves of newcomers – people fleeing wars, drought and poverty from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Angola, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia. South Africa allows for the admittance of refugee children into its system provided they have the requisite documents. This article reports on qualitative research, conducted with refugee children attending a Refugee Bridging Program at Mercy College, an affluent private school in Johannesburg, South Africa. The article addresses the questions: (i) what are the personal and academic experiences of refugee children enrolled in a refugee bridging school programme; and (ii) how does an ethic of hospitality facilitate their integration into education and prepare them for entrance into mainstream schooling? The a...

Reconceptualising and recontextualising nurturance pedagogy in higher education

According to Gore (1993:68-69), authority in the construction of feminist pedagogy is addressed in at least three ways, namely: authority versus nurturance; authority as authorship; and authority as power. While authority as authorship suggests considering teaching as an enactment of a narrative in which authority refers to the power to represent and challenge versions of reality; authority as power interrogates the ideal of not replicating traditional conceptions of teacher as-single- authority figure that mainstream patriarchal education has been critiqued for. In this paper I explore the theme ‘authority versus nurturance’, as it emerged from my study, “Enacting Feminisms in Academia”, which was conducted with educators teaching English from a feminist perspective at five universities in Southern Africa. Women dominate the teaching profession. However, despite the existence of various egalitarian policy transformation documents and legislation (especially within the South African context), that make pr...

The Bina Gumede story: exploring the ethics of researching the other

JULIET PERUMAL and DAISY PILAY examine issues of reflexivity, difference, power, and voice in relation to the ethical and methodological tensions that emerged for them as feminist researchers during an interview with Bina Gumede, a rural craftswoman

Offerings of Women in the Transformation of African Higher Education: A Retrospective Overview:

This article presents an unusual concrete insight to African higher education transformation. The purpose is to examine the roles of African women mainly Charlotte Maxeke, a South African, in the transformation of higher education and to identify the legacy these transformation offerings translate into for women. It is organized as follows: first, the origin of transformation in higher education systems to global massification of education in the background section is traced. Second, in an attempt to understand as a means of examining the roles of women in the transformation of higher education, existing literature as evidence is engaged. Two crucial issues—challenges for African higher education transformation and women’s role in higher education development in Africa—were reviewed analytically toward transformation of higher education. Third, empowerment theory, as suitable theory for the reasonable accomplishment of the purpose of this article, is presented. Last, the theory was applied to the discussions justifying the conclusion. The methodology used is both descriptive and exploratory. The article divulges that women had always being fanatical about empowerment of themselves and others because women had at some points in history contributed to developmental alterations of African higher education given their enormous offerings or contributions. Obviously, as revealed in this article, while risking their lives in an Apartheid/colonial regime where death could visit anyone who opposes the government at any time, their offerings or roles include financial commitment; empowerment advocacy and knowledge enchanting.