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Framed by decolonial theory, this paper explores how language and literacy ideologies, including Anglonormativity, or the expectation that children should be proficient in a standardised version of English and are deficient if not, shape language and literacy practices in South African classrooms. While not legitimised, the use of fluid language practices in classroom discourse in the Global South is well documented. Less explored is the impact of language ideologies on children's written text production. Using the tools of linguistic ethnography, I focus on the literacy practices emergent bilingual children are engaged with in a Natural Science lesson in year 4, the first year of their transition from 'home language' language of instruction (LOI) to monolingual English LOI. A close analysis of the practice of learners making notes in the lesson shows a pretextual gap between the expectations of the activity: that the children will be proficient in the 'English' used for note-making as well as orthography and layout conventions of written notes, and the heterographic writing they are able to produce. I examine the written products of note-making against a contested history of the use of African languages for writing fiction, and the exclusion of African languages from formal education, thus within a context of coloniality of language. I argue that the concept of "ukuzilanda" can inspire the expansion of literacies in African languages in education, enabling us to build from an existing literate and oral tradition.

Multilingualism as a consequence of transnational mobility and migration is prominent in studies of language socialization and family multilingualism in the Global North. While mobility within and between the various regions in South Africa sustains multilingualism and aligns with the global dynamic of mobility, Indigenous multilingualism is inherently the norm. The officiation of 11 named languages positions the country as linguistically diverse. However, dominant ideologies from the coloniality of language continue to reinforce the power of colonial languages while African languages used by numerical majorities remain marginalized, especially in high-status domains such as education. In this article, we present ethnographic data from a case study of a Xhosa multilingual family traversing between their urban (township) homes and the main family homestead in a rural setting. The family includes a child who attends a suburban historically whites-only English medium school. Reflecting on the non-hierarchical use of languages within their homes, or their languaging, we show how they use their linguistic/semiotic and spatial repertoires to make family as well as to resist the hierarchical positioning of the colonial languages, English and Afrikaans, above isiXhosa (prefix isi- indicates the language of Xhosa people) at school. Informed by Siqwana-Ndulo's (1998) challenge to the Western idea of the nuclear family, our analysis demonstrates how family is distributed across kinship ties and households. We introduce the notion of "ikhaya" -- the isiXhosa word for both family and home (see Molate, forthcoming) -- as a useful southern concept for accounting for the expansive nature of family kinship systems in African families.

Deaf learners are among the most disadvantaged when it comes to educational outcomes in South Africa. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to explore the educational needs of learners who are deaf and use the findings as a basis from which to strengthen their education. This research employed a qualitative research design, drawing on interviews with deaf learners, teachers, school management team members (SMTs) and parents. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings reveal that deaf learners have significant difficulty in communicating with their teachers, and that teachers of the deaf in South Africa are not sufficiently trained to understand the educational needs of their learners. Recommendations regarding the strengthening of training for teachers of the deaf are made.

In line with global non-discrimination legislative changes and inclusive education policies, the number of disabled students in higher education institutions are increasing. Previously, disabled students were excluded from higher education. Currently, however, higher education institutions are expected to have disability statements and policies, and provide support for disabled students. In spite of this upward trend, disabled students remain seriously underrepresented within higher education, and experience barriers at a range of levels. This article examines the experiences of disabled participants entering into higher education in South Africa. The findings of this qualitative exploratory study highlight the influences of onset of disability (acquired verses congenital) on their integration experiences. It specifically examines participants' experiences accepting newly acquired disabilities and the impact of this on completion of study, experiences relating to disclosure of disability, and opportunities to select and enrol for desired subjects and courses at higher education institutions.

Language ideologies profoundly shape and constrain the use of language as a resource for learning in 'multilingual' or linguistically diverse classrooms. In this paper, we draw attention in particular to the ideology of languages as stable, boundaried objects and to the colonial invention of African languages. Against this backdrop, we analyse an example of pedagogical practice which was designed in response to a linguistic ethnography of Year 9 Science learning in a South African high school. The aim of this intervention is to move beyond the constraints of current language ideologies and to enable bilingual isiXhosa/English students to use a wide range of resources from their semiotic repertoires for learning Science. We will argue that debates about language of instruction in post-colonial contexts which pit one named language against another, misdirect our attention away from how the resources of language and other semiotic modes are or are not being used for learning in classroom discourse and learning materials. We aim to show how pedagogical translanguaging and trans-semiotising can be taken up as strategies of disinvention and reconstitution of 'language' for learning Science. (195)

The data discussed in this paper is drawn from research conducted in a multilingual urban primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the official language of instruction is English and the majority of learners are African language speakers, frequently with very limited English proficiency. The paper presents a case study of one child who uses her own multilingual resources in order to draw her peers into the routines and meaning-making processes of classroom life. It explores the extent to which this learner, despite being in year one of formal schooling, uses hybrid discursive practices to cross several boundaries: adult-child; teacher-learner; peer/friend-teacher; English-proficient-multilingual. It considers the opportunities for peer participation in classroom activities created through the case-study learner's hybridising of identity positions and examines the way in which this learner "reads" the classroom environment and positions herself in the classroom space. The paper argues that the case-study learner is using her bi\multilingual resources to induct other learners into ways of doing and being at school, and as such to construct a classroom community.

This article argues that theories of "decoloniality" provide valuable insights into the social relations of "Model C" schools that have been brought into visibility in particular ways by the wave of student protests during and after 2016. Our starting point is to provide a brief outline of the central arguments made by a particular strand of theorists who have developed the term "decoloniality." We then look briefly at the history of "Model C" schools, locating their formation in the compromises of the negotiated settlement that characterised South Africa's political transition in the 1990s. We look in particular at language policy and practices in these previously white schools and at the power relations of language in South Africa. In this account, we argue that "Model C" schools exemplify the entangled power matrix that characterises coloniality. "Model C" schools, we argue, provide a clear example of how deep historical inequalities persist well past the formal end of colonialism. Pressing this argument further, we outline some possible implications for changes in schooling that a decoloniality approach invites.

We describe educational experiences of people with disabilities who attended special schools in South Africa. We found significant differences in education between White and Black participants in terms of teaching quality, access to therapy and assistive devices, class sizes, subjects, and grades offered. Additional differences were noted between participants with congenital and early-onset disabilities, and those with degenerative or acquired disabilities who moved from a mainstream school to a special school. Thirty-six percent of participants in this study completed their education after Education White Paper 6 (EWP6), South Africa's inclusive education policy had been implemented. Despite this, findings suggest that all these participants experienced similar challenges as those who received their education during the apartheid era. This study highlights the important need to address the existing "special school" scenario, and effectively implement the principles of EWP6.

This paper focuses on the lack of impact on language education of recent paradigm shifts in the study of language and society such as the recognition of the ideology of language[s] as stable, discrete or bounded entities and the reality of heteroglossic languaging and semiotic practices in everyday life. Using South Africa as a case, the paper explores the implications of heteroglossic conceptualising of language as social practice for language education through three ethnographically informed case studies of classroom discourse. I will argue that monoglossic orientations which ironically underpin both monolingual and "multilingual" approaches have wide-ranging constraining effects on how children are positioned in schooling, and on children's participation in classrooms, resulting in a form of "epistemic injustice" (Fricker, 2007). [This article was written with Hannah Carrim, Alex Marshall, and Laura Layton.]

Research on school desegregation in South Africa has largely documented an assimilationist process. As in educational contexts elsewhere, the assimilationist position presupposes that learners from non-dominant groups are made to change their ways of being on entering schools from which they were previously excluded. Drawing on an ethnographic case-study of a suburban girls' school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where "black" learners have replaced "white" learners, as well as on post-structuralist theorizing of "discourse" and "identity", this paper engages with and critiques the assimilationist position. I reconstruct the discursive positioning of the girls within official school discourses, thus highlighting the powerful assimilationist project of the school, but go on to explore the ways in which the learners use a range of semiotic resources not valued in official school discourses to subvert their positioning. I conclude that in inhabiting the school, the girls experience both repressive and liberatory effects, and they themselves produce mobile points of resistance. (Contains 5 notes.)

This paper explores difficulties in talking about "race" and difference in a post-apartheid university classroom. The data come from classroom-based research conducted in a first-year undergraduate English Studies course at a historically "white" and Afrikaans university in South Africa. Drawing on poststructuralist ideas on discourse and the self, discourse and society, I analyse moments from classroom discourse and argue that the ways in which the students talk and think about "race" and culture echo both resonances of the past as well as discourses in current circulation. I draw on the Bakhtinian notion of heteroglossia in order to understand why "race" is simultaneously a taboo topic and an important self-identifier (the product of both apartheid discourses of discrimination and post-apartheid discourses of equity and redress) and argue for the need to deconstruct essentialist notions of "race" and culture in the post-apartheid classroom. (Contains 14 notes.)

This article discusses practitioner research that focused on student resistance to teaching about the apartheid past and issues of "race" in a first year English studies course at a predominantly Afrikaans and "white" university in South Africa. The study aimed to explore the way in which students and the teacher engaged with a form of critical pedagogy moment-by-moment in the classroom. In this article, I turn the analytical spotlight onto myself, analysing the way in which my own multiple and sometimes contradictory identity positions as an educator play themselves out. In particular, I explore the tensions between my preferred "democratic" teaching style, and my moral or ethical views. I argue that this tension creates a dilemma for teaching within critical pedagogy, which is not easily resolved. I also reflect on the experience of researching my own teaching practice, and attempt to understand how my research insights were developed, linking this to the distinction between reflective practice and action research. (Contains 4 notes.)

People with disabilities, especially those living in low- and middle-income countries, experience significant challenges in accessing healthcare services and support. At times of disasters and emergencies, people with disabilities are further marginalised and excluded. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many people with disabilities are unable to access healthcare facilities, receive therapeutic interventions or rehabilitation, or gain access to medication. Of those who are able to access facilities, many experience challenges, and at times direct discrimination, accessing life-saving treatment such as intensive care unit admission and ventilator support. In addition, research has shown that people with disabilities are at higher risk of contracting the virus because of factors that include the need for interpersonal caregivers and living in residential facilities. We explore some of the challenges that people with disabilities residing in South Africa currently experience in relation to accessing healthcare facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During disasters, when resources and care are scarce, healthcare workers are required to make decisions and prioritise which patients receive life-saving resources over others. To assist healthcare workers in standardising resources and care, triage policies have been developed. However, the current COVID-19 triage policies and practices in South Africa may exclude or disadvantage many disabled people, especially people with physical and intellectual impairments, from gaining intensive care unit (ICU) access and receiving ventilators if becoming ill. The exclusion of disabled people goes against the principles established in South Africa's Constitution, in which all people are regarded as equal, have the right to life and inherent dignity, the right to access healthcare, as well as the protection of dignity. In addition, the triage policy contravenes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the South African government has signed and ratified. This article raises debates about whose lives matter and whose lives are 'worth' saving over others, and although the focus is on South Africa, the issues may be relevant to other countries where life-saving resources are being rationed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In spite of legislations and policies to ensure an inclusive society in South Africa for the accommodation of people with disabilities, there are reports that they still struggle to move freely within society. Objectives: As part of a larger qualitative exploratory study on the preparation of undergraduate civil engineering students in a local university to contribute to the development of an inclusive society, this article seeks to understand the impact of the lived experiences of people with disabilities in their interaction with the built environment. Method: Four persons with disabilities, considered to be knowledgeable about South African legislations relating to disability, were purposely selected to each share one specific experience whilst interacting with the built environment. The transcribed texts of the interviews were analysed by using the phenomenological–hermeneutic method. Results: The participants exhibited strong desires to participate in society. However, the sense of loss of control and independence as they encountered challenges in the built environment changed the euphoria to disempowerment, rejection, anger and despondency. In spite of their experiences, participants expressed a commitment towards overcoming the challenges encountered in the broader interest of people with disabilities. Conclusion: A deeper understanding of the impact of the experiences of people with disabilities when they participate within the built environment in South Africa revealed a broad spectrum of negative emotions, which may impact the quality of life and well-being of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The benefits of engaging in sport and other free-time activities empower youth to learn social and life skills. There is little research evidence that participation builds competence for livelihoods development of youth with disabilities. This article investigates the capacity of non-governmental organisations to extend the outcomes of participation in these activities for livelihoods development. It argues that occupational therapists employed in non-governmental organisations could play this key role. Method The study utilised an exploratory, intrinsic case study design to provide meaningful, context-related knowledge and insight about real-life events. Twenty disabled youth and 12 parents of disabled children, between the ages of 18 and 37 years, were selected through five non-governmental organisations in an urban metropole and town, and two rural farming communities in South Africa. Findings Two themes emerged: first, family as anchor and catalyst for social and economic inclusion; and second, creating capacity for inclusive environments, systems and services to maximise resources for livelihood development. Conclusion Occupational therapists in non-governmental organisations are well positioned to facilitate capacity-building of a community-based inclusive workforce to ensure systems for public service delivery are accessible and affordable. Then, the social and life skills developed through sport and free-time activities may enable the livelihoods development of all youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]