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As the most stigmatised epidemic in history -- the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) have proven to be a fierce challenge to humanity. The stigmatisation associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to destroy societies worldwide. The present study was designed to explain the challenges faced by teachers living with HIV. Transformational and ethics of care theories framed this research study. A narrative research design rooted in social constructivism was used to gather qualitative data. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis, where descriptive, process, and emotion codes were used to interpret the data. Key findings speak to affected teachers' social exclusion, stigmatisation and discrimination, inadequate care and support, physical debilitation as well as psychological stress and depression. All these conditions resulted in teachers being unable to perform their tasks at optimal level in South African schools.

Background: Writing is among the most important skills, and globally it has received more emphasis in literature on language teaching than reading, speaking and listening. However, a paucity of studies is observed in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in contexts where English is being taught as an additional or foreign language, as is the case in Rwanda. Research shows that learners who can write well in different genres and for different purposes tend to do well in all curriculum subjects and subsequently beyond school education. The key challenges are the inadequacy of materials and teachers' inability to teach writing well, especially through distance education programmes. Objectives: This study investigates the effectiveness of materials used at the University of Rwanda-College of Education's Distance Education programme to train high school teachers on writing pedagogy for English teaching. Method: The study adopted a qualitative approach to report on the findings from textual, document analysis of distance education materials, argumentative essays and focus group discussions with 80 of 599 in-service teachers, who responded to designed and redesigned sections on writing pedagogy. Results: The findings indicate that teachers' knowledge and skills in both writing and writing pedagogy are not addressed effectively by the materials designed. This negatively affected the quality of their own writing abilities and those of their students. Conclusion: The article recommends reconceptualisation of distance education materials to equip in-service teachers with propositional knowledge and procedural knowledge on writing pedagogy.

Globally, the appraisal of educators remains a contested issue as the process, which aims to provide support and development to educators, is generally considered a punitive measure for educators. Within the South African context, the Integrated Quality Management System is used to evaluate educators. Drawing on Fraser's theories of social justice, this article explores the perspectives of 11 educators regarding educator developmental appraisal in post-apartheid South Africa as a catalyst for social (in)justice. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using critical discourse analysis. This article highlights the importance of social justice practices in enhancing learner achievement and foregrounds the (in)justices often witnessed during the appraisal process. Findings reveal that the developmental appraisal process has the potential to promote social justice; however, contextual factors seem to be hindering the successful implementation of the appraisal process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is an indispensable tool for total economic emancipation in Africa and elsewhere. Thus, it is a great cause for concern that teachers, who are the main drivers of education, are so strongly affected by HIV/AIDS. A large part of the profound impact of HIV/AIDS is felt in education and threatens the quality of education. The study reported on examined how principals are managing the challenges caused by absenteeism among teachers living with HIV/AIDS. A narrative inquiry design situated in the qualitative research approach was used together with narrative interviews to elicit qualitative data. The study was embedded within the social constructivist paradigm. Transformational leadership and ethics of care formed the theoretical framework of the study. The qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. The key findings reveal how principals maintain quality of instructional effectiveness through substituting sick and absent teachers using a relief system. They also support, empower and advise teachers. Principals should be provided with support from the Department of Education (DoE) to replace teachers timeously before teaching and learning are disrupted.

Purpose: This paper reports on results of a systematic research synthesis of 25 studies on women in educational leadership and management in Zimbabwe. The aim of this systematic review of research was to report conclusions drawn from a synthesis of findings from studies of gender and educational leadership in Zimbabwe. Design/methodology/approach: The review used systematic methods to identify 25 research studies that examined women leading schools in Zimbabwe. Research synthesis methods used for qualitative research studies were employed in order to identify three broad themes and related subthemes across the studies. Findings: The review identified three themes--(1) barriers to women gaining access to management positions, (2) female ways of leading, (3) context challenges for women leaders. Both barriers to gaining positions and context challenges faced in enactment of the leadership role are described. These consist of an intertwined web of personal, institutional and cultural challenges. Women's ways of leading were characterized as collegial, collaborative and caring. Research limitations/implications: Three implications are identified. First is a need for better statistical information on gender representation in Zimbabwe and other African countries. Second is a need to design and implement training, mentoring and networking support programs for female leaders in Zimbabwe. Finally, the authors recommend that future research move toward the use of mixed methods research designs capable of achieving complementary research goals of gaining a broad perspective on the effects of female leadership and in-depth understanding of how those are achieved. Originality/value: Empirical studies of female leadership is especially urgent in Africa where particular features embedded in the cultural context shape female access to leadership role and attitude towards efforts of women to lead.

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.

Assessment in institutions of higher learning has been researched worldwide. However, there are gaps in research exploring the implications of assessment practices for learners' access to the kind of knowledge enabling them to participate in their communities' socio-economic transformation. This is the case in the African Great Lakes region, including Rwanda. This paper investigated the assessment practices at the University of Rwanda-College of Education to establish whether they enable students to access powerful knowledge for socio-economic transformation, which promotes critical thinking and creativity, or the knowledge of the powerful, which promotes memorization of knowledge produced by experts. The study adopted mixed methods, where 361 questions from 20 examinations papers for 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 academic years were analysed using Bloom's revised taxonomy. Interviews with lecturers and group discussions with students were conducted. The findings revealed that assessment practices heavily encourage the knowledge of the powerful, with limited focus on the socio-economic transformative knowledge. Such practices are unlikely to lead to national socioeconomic transformation, which the government expects from education. The paper recommends revisiting assessment practices in Rwandan higher education to instil in the graduates the required knowledge for active contribution to socio-economic transformation.

This paper presents results of a systematic research synthesis of 23 studies on female leadership in Eswatini. The review aimed to present conclusions drawn from synthesising findings from studies on women's participation in leadership in Eswatini. Systematic methods were used in the review to identify the 23 research studies focusing on female leadership across sectors in Eswatini. Since the reviewed studies were qualitative, research synthesis methods were used, and three main themes were identified across the excavated studies. The three main themes are: (1) gender inequality, (2) challenges for women leadership, and (3) women empowerment. Sub‐themes relating to the main themes also emerged. Challenges highlighted were categorised into two: those inhibiting access to leadership for women, and those affecting women who are already in leadership. Forms of women empowerment discussed in the studies are: in‐service training, networking and mentoring. The analysis contributed to knowledge on female leadership in Eswatini by highlighting contributions and limitations of these studies, and further provides a base for future conceptual analysis.Context and implicationsRationale for the studyThe main purpose for undertaking the synthesis of literature on women leadership in Eswatini was to add a voice in the leadership discourse using Eswatini's context.Why the new findings matterThe review on women leadership in Eswatini contributes to the knowledge on African women leadership, and further act as a signpost for future research.Implications for practionersThe synthesis revealed the dearth of literature on female leadership in Eswatini, thus highlighting the need for scholars and feminist researchers to prioritise documenting the voices of women leaders that remains undocumented, so that upcoming young leaders can learn from the great works done by those who have walked uncharted paths before them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"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.

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.

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.

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.

This paper is based on a study titled "Enacting Feminisms in Academia", which engaged five feminist lecturers teaching English at five different multilingual universities in Southern Africa. The study explored: (1) the complexity of sociolinguistic and feminist identity construction in multilingual seascapes, and by extension (2) how feminist educators' interpretation and enactment of their personal world-view informs their language teaching in terms of "what" they teach, "how" they teach, and "why" they teach what they do. The participants who hail from a diverse range of ideological landscapes were identified either by themselves or others as feminist teachers. Through a suite of data sources which comprised autobiographical essays, interviews and lecture observations, this paper explores how the female teacher's educative and pedagogic expertise and interactions are framed in relation to her race, gender, and age. Accepting the fluidity and complexity of identity positionalities, the paper explores the identity constructions of the feminist teachers in their communities of practice. (Contains 1 table.)

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. (Contains 5 notes.)

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. (Contains 5 notes.)

Educational institutions worldwide have weathered several challenges and crises, ranging from school curriculum changes, school closures due to political turmoil, outbreaks of disease, and natural disasters. The last two decades have seen the rise of natural disasters and global health crises and currently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). South African education has not been immune to these challenges and crises. The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in global disruption to education institutions marked by the prolonged closure of schools and school community members falling ill and succumbing to the disease. The outbreak and its impact have necessitated upon school leaders to successfully navigate their staff and students through an unprecedented dispensation. Drawing on critical feminist theoretical insights about leadership ethics and women, inter- and trans-corporeality, and emotional and affective labour, this qualitative study reports on four female principals' leadership experiences at independent and public high schools in South Africa. Data about the leadership experiences of the participants were generated using various e-platforms. The study explored the personal and professional challenges the female principals experienced during the COVID-19 crisis in relation to contextual factors such as the geographical location of the school; socio-economic status of parents and their involvement in remote teaching and learning; the availability of resources, and their leadership styles, philosophies, and responses to the pandemic, prior to, during and after the national lockdowns. The study revealed that despite experiencing anxiety over the uncertainty of life in general, their perseverance, resilience, ethic of care and empathy and fostering collaboration amongst staff and parents contributed to successfully navigating their schools through the early stages of the COVID- 19 pandemic. The pandemic also amplified the socio-economic disparities between independent, resource-rich schools and disadvantaged government schools and its subsequent impact on these schools transitioning from traditional to online teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of school principals and the experiences of disclosure amongst teachers living with HIV. Due to HIV/AIDS-related stigma being prevalent in many societies today, many infected people would rather not disclose their status than deal with negative labelling and stereotyping. This study utilised narrative inquiry as a qualitative research design that is known to be a way of understanding experiences. Data was elicited via narrative interviews from a purposeful sample of ten principals and eight teachers living with HIV who were selected through network sampling from Gauteng public urban schools. The study found that stigma, fear of job loss and gossip deterred teachers from disclosing their HIV status. In some instances, they disclosed due to needing support, which principals provided in the form of counselling, and also to explain absenteeism. Although principals supported disclosure of teachers' HIV status so that they could initiate care, confidentiality concerns showed that disclosure could further worsen stigma and the culture of discrimination and moral judgement that teachers living with HIV faced. The study recommends on-going development of caring relationships to deepen the understanding of the experiences of teachers living with HIV. Nondisclosure of HIV status stands in the way of building caring relationships between teachers and principals. There is still a need to create safe, supportive and empathetic environments in schools for teachers living with HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The persistent systemic inequalities inherent in cultural and traditional practices shape how society views women as leaders. This article reviewed the literature to highlight the needs, opportunities, constraints, and resources of disadvantaged schools and how this context influences the leadership practices of female primary school principals. Two questions guided the study: (1) What are the needs, opportunities, constraints, and resources of disadvantaged schools and how do they influence leadership practice? (2) How do female principals adapt their practices to their school contexts? An unbounded search was conducted to identify 22 publications, consisting of 17 peer-reviewed English-language journal articles, three book chapters, and two conference papers on female educational leadership in Zimbabwe. Systematic search criteria were strictly followed to obtain the publications from 2008 to 2018. Through the lens of an African feminist perspective, this study established that the features of a disadvantaged school context influence what female principals do and how they do it. It is important to note that principals craft strategies to expand the available resources while taking advantage of the opportunities at their disposal to manage constraints in order to meet the needs of their schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this article is immigrant women's perceptions of social change, and how they respond to it. In the article, social change refers to the fact that more people than ever before are engaged in different activities that lead to alterations in the norms and behavioural patterns of people as individuals or as a group in society. The study analysed social change via the perceptions of individuals--immigrant Nigerian women in South African higher education. In line with phenomenological research with which this article is aligned, an intrinsic qualitative case study approach--interviews--was employed to gather data. The cases involved four Nigerian women who are currently residing in South Africa and studying at higher education institutions in the country. Snowball sampling was used to select participants. Social change, as revealed in this article, is a lens that can be used to better understand individuals as a society or people. Furthermore, and in terms of materialist social theory that was utilised, this article reveals that social change relates to economic relationships between self (individuals or group) and society where survival of people is linked to surplus economic goods and the acquisition of tangible and intangible wants in order to deal with the fear of an unknown future. The article concludes that the understanding of self as a fallout of social change is a means of understanding others and vice versa, which can help people--especially locals or indigenes--conquer their fear of foreigners or immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promulgated by Nelson Mandela in December 1996, South Africa's post-Apartheid Constitution draws on the Bill of Rights to affirm the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. As an emerging democracy, South Africa further seeks to address issues of social justice and equality in education through the South African Schools Act of 1996. This Act sets out policies and practices intended to redress past injustices and support the rights of learners, educators and parents. Drawing on critical feminist theory, this study explored the experiences of female educational leaders in South Africa's disadvantaged rural school communities. This qualitative research project adopted a case study research design. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations. The aims of this paper are: (i) to investigate the principles of social justice and equity as expressed through spiritual leadership; and (ii) to interpret these principles in relation to education policies. Identifying connectedness and spirituality as prerequisites for spiritual leadership, the study found that spiritual leadership is a means through which social justice leadership can be enacted. While the South African Schools Act upholds the notion that public schools promote democracy through respect for all and a tolerance of diverse religious beliefs, this paper does not conflate spirituality with religion. It instead, explores alternative interpretations which explore spiritual leadership and restorative justice as vehicles through which equity and social justice can be understood and enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multiple case study explored how to advance the practice of teacher leadership in public secondary schools. It aimed to identify the factors that will enhance the advancement of teacher leadership in the context of Nigerian public secondary schools (NPSS). The research participants included nine teachers, three principals, three vice-principals, and an educational administrator in an educational district in Lagos, Nigeria. The study used semi-structured interviews and an analysis of Nigerian education policy documents to generate data. The study revealed that networking, modelling, equity, justice, and fairness are of great importance in advancing teacher leadership in schools. It also shows that robust succession programmes, trust, and coaching, which provide support for colleagues, will promote collegiality, love, and harmony in achieving educational goals. The study recommends that building trust and networking are essential in building organisational culture, which can help to increase teachers' self-development and, in that way, improve teaching and learning. Additionally, it will benefit the school, students, and community. Moreover, strategies for succession and training for leadership positions are of great significance in public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees 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 article provides pen portraits of their personal family biographical details; their pre-flight; flight and settlement experiences; their social and academic experiences; as well as their short-term and long-term academic plans and career aspirations. I draw on theoretical insights from deconstructionist conceptions of hospitality and guest-host dialectics as espoused by Derrida (2001). In addressing issues of marginalisation in relation to access to education, the article argues for complementing a rights-based framework with a hospitality-based framework to respond humanely and with immediacy to refugee children within South African education, thereby giving credence to the country's policy rhetoric to agitate for promoting the values of democracy, social justice, equity, reconciliation, and freedom from violence, discrimination and prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The pursuit of knowledge should be the objective of managers in the workplace, both for the purpose of empowerment and to achieve financial objectives. It is important that retail managers have a need to solidify their transformational leadership knowledge, which ultimately could increase their capacity to excel. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -- A structured management development programme (MDP), consisting of a comprehensive spectrum of retail management and leadership theory and practices, was designed to develop transformational leadership by using transformational teaching and learning strategies. The sample for this study consisted of seven retail managers from a group of 20 managers, employed by Retek, the largest independent retail pharmacy group in South Africa. A focus group interview identified the dominant themes and produced a landscape to understand the retail managers' environment, their preferred teaching methodology and benefits experienced from attending the MDP. Findings -- By transforming themselves, these managers have become more empathetic leaders, armed with self-awareness and a deeper awareness of team issues. The MDP created in a shift in their attitude towards attending training programmes and subsequently, has created a more accommodating philosophy towards workplace learning. The study added to the understanding of how transformational teaching and learning lead to more effective transformational leadership and the integration of theory into practice by retail managers. The conclusion was that by embracing and practising a transformational teaching and learning ideology, the managers would be better equipped with managerial and transformational leadership abilities. Originality/value -- This research provided a landscape for future management development training in terms of selection of managers to attend, relevant curriculum, teaching and learning methodology as well as benefits of this type of professional development. This initiative was the first project in which such a programme has been designed, developed and instructed in this particular organisation and encompassed a unique experience in terms of training, professional development and the change in the willingness to engage in training and acknowledgement of the value of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminist teacher is committed to an educational project based on the values of social justice, human rights, relevance, and critical thinking. This means that she educates with the objective of effecting conceptual shifts in her students in accordance with anti discriminatory discourses. In other words, she attempts to normalise feminist sensibilities as a new social ideal by making students sensitive to what they experience in the world and the Word and by encouraging them to examine the dominant discriminatory status quo, and subvert discriminatory social practices thereby defining a new social normative. By exercising her educative power she attempts to provoke students to engage in critical reflection and social activism. However, despite the 'nobility' of her educative objectives, teaching is a complex and ambiguous activity; hence defining the place for ideologies in classrooms is a subject fraught with ambiguity and tensions. This holds true for the project of conscientizing and socialising students into feminist and social justice sensibilities. This paper is based on a narrative study that was conducted with tertiary educators who teach English from a feminist perspective at various universities in Southern Africa. The study was premised on the view that who teaches what, why and how are patently ideological questions that have far reaching personal, professional and pedagogical implications. The study brought to the surface various insights around educator and student identity, ideologies identification, and dis-identification. I have written about these issues in other academic publications (See Perumal, 2004a; 2004b; 2003a; 2003b). This paper, however, focuses specifically on student resistance to radical feminist ideologies. More specifically, in this paper I report on various postures of student resistance, which included students denying, discounting, distancing themselves from feminist teachers' critique of gender and sexual orientation discrimination or expressing dismay at the enormity of patriarchal oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 provision for women to assume research and senior management positions, their roles and status continue to be tied largely to teaching and administrative duties. These roles inevitably activate and perpetuate patriarchally mandated scripts of women/female teacher as loving nurturer; emanating from the associative and traditional functions of woman as caregiver, and bounteous mother. The expectation for female educators to enact maternal roles becomes more pronounced within institutions of higher education, where massification of education, and substandard pre-tertiary education have seen an increase in the intake of students who arrive for university education with stymied literacy and conceptual skills. Thus, the discourse on nurturance versus authority emerges from attempts to interrogate and reconceptualise the feminisation of education. This paper explores the participants' unanimous efforts to unhinge the female teacher from association with caregiver and intellectualised mammy, while simultaneously ensuring that she is not read as disconnected mother. It also presents the participants' views about the need to recontextualise teacher-student interpersonal relations, to render them more appropriate for relating to university-age students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gore (1993: 68-69) has identified at least three ways in which authority in the construction of feminist pedagogy is addressed: authority versus nurturance, authority as authorship, and authority as power. In this article I draw on my broader study entitled, Enacting Feminism in Academia (2003), which involved educators teaching English from a feminist perspective at five universities in Southern Africa, to address the theme authority as authorship. I focus on the intersection between feminist pedagogy and critical language awareness, which provides a particularly incisive analytical lens to explore issues relating to race, class, gender, age, and subjugated knowledges as these configure sociolinguistic identity and the construction of ideology. In this paper I first present a theoretical overview on the debate around whether personal epistemology constitutes valid knowledge in English language classrooms that explore discourses on identity politics. I then contextualise the study and provide an exemplar of a student-teacher personal disclosure from a lecture to illustrate its pedagogic significance in relation to race and gender. I present strategies educators employ for dealing with sensitive personal disclosures, and in conclusion I explore the politics of assessing student personal disclosures against academic evaluation criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper commences with an acknowledgement that feminist discourses are characterised by both theoretical diversity and commonalities. Despite the non-unitariness of feminist discourses, the debates emanating from them provide partial and tentative resolutions to the issues facing women in patriarchal and capitalist societies. Accepting that much of the diversity characterising the fissures in feminist discourses spring from women's various social positionalities, as they relate to race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, language, etc., the paper explores conceptions of identity in relation to the history and scope of identity politics by linking its emergence to wide-ranging political activism and theorising which are aimed at eradicating the disenfranchisement of women and other marginalized social groups. Central to this discussion is the ongoing tension between theorists advocating essentialising aspects of identity in order to mobilise and agitate for social rights, and those calling for the recognition of identity as multiple and in-process. As a way of reconciling the tensions between essentialist identity and multiple identities, for practical purposes, some scholars advocate the formation of provisional coalitions based on principled and strategic alliances, which could be used to mobilise for social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]