Nirmala Gopal

Exploring alternative assessment strategies in science classrooms

The knowledge children bring to the classroom or construct in the classroom may find expression in a variety of activities and is often not measurable with the traditional assessment instruments used in science classrooms. Different approaches to assessment are required to accommodate the various ways in which learners construct knowledge in social settings. In our research we attempted to determine the types of outcomes achieved in a Grade 6 classroom where alternative strategies such as interactive assessments were implemented. Analyses of these outcomes show that the learners learned much more than the tests indicate, although what they learnt was not necessarily science. The implications for assessment are clear: strategies that assess knowledge of science concepts, as well as assessment of outcomes other than science outcomes, are required if we wish to gain a holistic understanding of the learning that occurs in science classrooms.

A Cross Cultural Virtual Learning Environment for Students to Explore the Issue of Racism: A Case Study involving the UK, USA and SA

This article draws upon the experiences of three academics who collaborated online to engage students from the three respective higher education institutions (the University of Wales, United Kingdom; the University of Washington, United States of America; and the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa) to participate in a Virtual Learning Environment using Blackboard software to examine the issue of racism (past and present). This article reflects upon the nature, context and format of the online learning environment, explores the staff and student experience of participating and engaging in the conference, and considers its effectiveness for learning and teaching. The article also highlights some of the cross cultural insights that emerged concerning language, culture, and social context in respect of the issue of racism and related issues of discrimination. The creation of a virtual learning environment across three continents raised interesting challenges and exciting opportunities in respect of academic collaboration and the development of learning and teaching strategies. The article concludes by suggesting there is pedagogical merit in using both cross cultural and virtual learning environments which may be particularly well suited to enable students to grapple with subject matters that have historically been fraught with ignorance, prejudice and pre‐conceived ideas.

Exploring the public parameter of police integrity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of the public component of Klockars’ and Kutnjak‐Ivkovics organizational theory of police integrity to the understanding of police integrity.Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a modified survey derived from “The Measurement of Police Integrity,” instrument developed by Klockars et al. Participants are constituted by a convenience sample of first‐year social studies students at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal (n=186) and 160 South African Police Service (SAPS) non‐commissioned officers throughout Gauteng Province, Republic of South Africa.Findings – Overall, the data present a mixed picture of integrity in the SAPS. The current study is certainly suggestive that the SAPS faces serious challenges to establishing and sustaining integrity and that based on either absolutist or normative criteria, the organization falls below desired levels of professional integrity. However, there are also indications that a significant proportio...

Music, Trance and Dance in the Thaipusam Kavady Festival: Reflections of a Select Group of South Africans

Abstract Hinduism in South Africa finds expression in a series of fasts, festivals and rituals. The Kavady festival is one of the most popular festivals observed annually by mostly Tamil-speaking Hindus in South Africa. This article examines how the Thaipusam Kavady festival is understood and explained by a select group of devotees in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This includes the significance of the festival for them, and in particular their understanding of the music and trance dance, about which there is a dearth of literature. Trance, dance, and music are seen as indispensable in helping raise devotees to a higher spiritual place and in coping with the physical pain exerted on the body. Most interviewees found the experience of Kavadi very rewarding and intend to continue participating in future years.

Understanding Indian Religious Practice in Malaysia

Abstract Religion is a binding factor for People of Indian Origin (PIO) residing in Malaysia and may well be so for Indians in other parts of the world. There is a ferociously upheld perception within the Malaysian Indian community that switching religions is tantamount to discarding one’s identity, the ultimate betrayal of the ancestral lineage. One ceases to be Indian once one embraces Islam. One ceases to be Punjabi once one practices Buddhism or Christianity. Switching religions is taboo amongst the PIO and is a cause for expulsion from the basic family unit and ultimately, the cultural group altogether. Generation after generation of PIOs guard the religions they were born into., to maintain first and foremost, as they believe, the religion itself, second, family ties; third, the gene pool of a particular Indian sub-group and fourth, the larger identity which is linked to survival as a cultural group in a predominantly Muslim country. This inherent fear so ingrained in Indian families is explored in this paper through the analysis of perceptions and personal histories of selected PIO’s born and bred in Muslim dominated Malaysia. A persistent trend is observed of PIOs, stifled by the Indian community’s iron-like grip on its members, whereby they tend to shed their Indian identity once the birth religion is abandoned. Reasons for such changes in cultural behaviour and its impacts on the individual as well as the Malaysian Indian community are a core focus. This paper is about identity maintenance among Punjab Sikhs living in Malaysia.

Time-dependent regional brain distribution of methadone and naltrexone in the treatment of opioid addiction: Naltrexone treatment failure

Opioid addiction is a serious public health concern with severe health and social implications; therefore, extensive therapeutic efforts are required to keep users drug free. The two main pharmacological interventions, in the treatment of addiction, involve management with methadone an mu (μ)‐opioid agonist and treatment with naltrexone, μ‐opioid, kappa (κ)‐opioid and delta (δ)‐opioid antagonist. MET and NAL are believed to help individuals to derive maximum benefit from treatment and undergo a full recovery. The aim of this study was to determine the localization and distribution of MET and NAL, over a 24‐hour period in rodent brain, in order to investigate the differences in their respective regional brain distributions. This would provide a better understanding of the role of each individual drug in the treatment of addiction, especially NAL, whose efficacy is controversial. Tissue distribution was determined by using mass spectrometric imaging (MSI), in combination with quantification via liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. MSI image analysis showed that MET was highly localized in the striatal and hippocampal regions, including the nucleus caudate, putamen and the upper cortex. NAL was distributed with high intensities in the mesocorticolimbic system including areas of the cortex, caudate putamen and ventral pallidum regions. Our results demonstrate that MET and NAL are highly localized in the brain regions with a high density of μ‐receptors, the primary sites of heroin binding. These areas are strongly implicated in the development of addiction and are the major pathways that mediate brain stimulation during reward.

Psychosocial Influences on Substance Abuse in a Sample of South African Youth: A Qualitative Analysis

This study investigated the lived experience of substance abusers in the South African context. Participants were 10 individuals attending a drug treatment centre in Durban, South Africa. Data were collected using open-ended interviews with data being analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that normative social influences and levels of social support play an important role in shaping, maintaining, and determining the trajectory of drug usage.

India and its diaspora: making sense of Hindu identity in South Africa.

Indian immigrants to South Africa in the late nineteenth century differed in terms of their origins, motivations, belief systems, customs, and practices from the indigenous African population as well as from the ruling white settler elite. It is within this context that this paper interrogates some of the ways in which several generations of (Indian) Hindus constructed and continue to (re)construct their religious identities in South Africa. Data for this study were achieved by administering face-to-face questionnaires to 66 individuals in the Metropolitan Area of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The sample (selected through snowball sampling) comprised third to fifth generation Indians belonging to the four major language groups (Tamil, Telegu, Gujarati, and Hindi) residing in South Africa. Following the questionnaire responses, interviews were conducted with a selected number of respondents from the same sample. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS while analysis of qualitative data followed a thematic model.

Towards a comprehensive test specification for normative adolescent fears: a conservation of resources perspective

Objective: This study assessed the extent to which the primary tenets of Conservation of Resources theory provide an adequate basis for categorising and conceptualising normative adolescent fears. Method: Initial descriptive research, using data obtained from a sample of South African adolescents (n = 163), used systematic emergent content analysis to develop a test specification (i.e., content domains and manifestations of content domains) relevant to measures of normative adolescent fears, with subsequent a priori content analyses being used to explore the content validity of the test specification with respect to the item-content of selected normative childhood and adolescent fear schedules. Results: Analyses suggest that content domains proposed by Conservation of Resources theory provide an adequate (exhaustive and mutually exclusive) basis for reliably conceptualising and categorising normative adolescent fears and for predicting the valence of specific adolescent fears. Conclusions: A Conservation of Resources perspective was found to be of heuristic value in exploring content domains relevant to normative adolescent fears, and would appear to hold promise as a useful conceptual framework for future research in the field.