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The community engagement project described in this article took the form of the re-invention and re-interpretation of a historic symbol (Diana the elephant) on the Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University (NWU), South Africa. In 2015, the Faculty of Education Sciences invited staff and students to reinterpret the elephant (a symbol of education, longevity, wisdom, care, stamina, memory) in a new and more multicultural, multilingual, inclusive and environmentally conscious South Africa. The participatory process described, and the related outcomes, involved learning by students and academics across disciplines (the conceptualisation, design, engineering and creation of the structure) and collaboration between academics, children and adults from the community, all with a strong service-learning dimension in relation to teacher education.

South Africa's history of segregation and the privileging of English and Afrikaans as the only languages of teaching and learning beyond primary schooling, make the post-apartheid period a complex one, especially in light of the Constitutional commitment to multilingualism in the 11 official languages. Research on literacy and language teaching contextualises the impact of curriculum and language policy initiatives aimed at improving learner performance. We review research concerning the transition from the study of first additional language (FAL) as subject, to the use of FAL as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT). Also considered are major studies on learner performance nationally and South Africa's comparability globally. The impact of home language (HL) literacy development on performance in English as the LoLT links to research on language development in teacher education programmes, and shows connections between the capacity of teachers to develop languages for literacy and LoLT and learner success. Research on the development of early childhood literacy in the HL demonstrates the positive impact on literacy development in the LoLT.

This essay inquires into the knowledge domains of teachers who teach English literature to first additional language learners in the Further Education and Training phase, namely Grades 10-12, in South Africa. We explore teachers' perceptions about content and pedagogy, their knowledge of their students, as well as their knowledge and beliefs about the place of literature teaching within the curriculum. Drawing on interviews, observations and document analysis, we endeavour to provide a glimpse into these knowledge domains, which often remain tacit. A conflict between the teachers' preferred reader-oriented approaches to teaching, with emphasis on collaborative knowledge construction and meaning making between teachers and their students, and more formal, text-oriented approaches, is evident. The focus on text-oriented approaches seems to be a result of required forms of assessment, as well as teachers' sense of responsibility towards their learners' achieving success in examinations.

This special issue of "Perspectives in Education" arises from a symposium entitled "Academic depth and rigour in initial teacher education" jointly organised by four universities in South Africa. The symposium, held in October 2014, attracted 125 delegates from 18 South African higher education institutions (HEIs). Representatives from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Department of Basic Education and a delegation from the European Union also attended. The forty-eight papers presented over two days enabled teacher educators to engage in robust conversations about the academic depth and rigour of courses offered to pre-service teachers. Presentations ranged from considerations of the overall conceptual coherence of initial teacher education (ITE) curricula and benchmarking quality to contributions that grappled with academic depth and rigour in specific subjects and courses offered in ITE programmes. This issue of "Perspectives in Education" provides a space for teacher educators who have been working to strengthen academic depth and rigour associated with ITE programmes to share their research, conceptualisation of courses, pedagogical innovations and assessment strategies with the sector more broadly. A contribution of this special issue to the national conversation about ITE is to show how a wide range of teacher educators, from different institutions and working in different subject areas, are working with academic depth and rigour to support the development of conceptually informed practice. This introduction to the issue first makes a case for why academic depth and rigour in university-based coursework is crucial for preparing prospective teachers for their work within the South African context and then introduces the papers.

This article presents analysed data from the first year of the Rural Teacher Education Project (RTEP 2007-2009) with a view to illustrating how a generative theory of rurality as education research was developed, and for which ends it might be utilised. The article suggests that data from projects in rural communities, which take the rural as context, need to interrogate the role and purpose of education in such contexts in relation to notions of social and professional identity. I argue for the application of a social theory in which the rural is linked to the possibilities of identity and interaction in terms of the quality of teacher education and the quality of education in rural communities. The theory accounts for the ability of people (in this case teachers) to sustain themselves in space and time--both as subjects and agents able to resist or transform the environment, depending on resources available. It also illuminates the reality, or otherwise, of subjectivities and perceptions in our collective imaginary concerning education and the transformation project in South Africa. (Contains 10 figures and 1 endnote.)

Supervision might be understood as the provision usually by an academic to a student of either the expert guidance in subject knowledge or genre knowledge in relation to postgraduate thesis development. The Project for Postgraduate Educational Research (PPER) team members, in the course of their field visits, sought to interview supervisors of postgraduate education research in the different institutions' faculties and schools of education where there was a substantive history of successful supervision. Evidence of sustained supervision was determined by the number of theses found in particular disciplines supervised by the same supervisor who is still employed at the institution at the time of the project visit. This article raises questions with regard to pedagogy and research and explores the complex nature of supervisory relationships which is central to the pedagogy of postgraduate education. Questions about the pedagogy of postgraduate education research leads the authors to explore how conventional attachments to supervisory relationships are challenged, changed or remain unaltered (Johnson et al. 2000, 137)--in the context of higher education, where, according to the CHE (2009), Ph.D. candidature has become more frequent. Our argument is that supervisory relationships in PhD pedagogy are negotiated and defined by the supervisors' particular ideas and interests about scholarship and knowledge generation, within situated, institutional realities. We find a variety of supervisory models and practices which arise from supervisors' ideological commitments, as well as personal experiences, and we conclude that there is exists a continuum--from a traditional model where there is deep, intense attachment to the one-to-one relationship on one end, a hybrid model where the supervision relationship is reconfigured and opened up for multiple relationships, on the other end. (Contains 1 figure.)

Historically, rurality and rural education have been marginalised bodies of knowledge in South Africa. The post-1994 era has seen an emerging government concern to address the continuing interplay between poverty, HIV/AIDS, underdevelopment, and underachievement in schools categorised as rural. To address these concerns, scholars in South African institutions of higher learning have conducted research on various issues on rurality and rural education. However, little is known of the focus of the various studies and the state of rural education and rural education research. Drawing on the Project for Postgraduate Education Research (PPER) from 1995-2004, the purpose of this article is to critically analyse the discourses underpinning rural education and rural education research in South Africa. The article focuses on three enabling assumptions. The first is that there is little research which takes as its primary focus rurality as lived experience worthy of scholarly reflection regarding how rurality influences social or specific education issues. Secondly, there is substantively more research in which rurality, or facets of rural life, is considered as context in which projects or studies are located. Such studies are conducted in a rural context without any intention of investigating rural issues or rural education issues, or explaining how rurality influences education in these rural contexts. Thirdly, there is a small body of research which takes as its focus social issues in relation to rural conditions. These studies focus on rurality not merely as the context of reflection, but as an active constituent of social conditions evident in rural life. Our analysis, focusing on postgraduate research in South African HEIs in terms of these assumptions, aims to continue a dialogue that leads to further understanding of the complexities of rural education and rural development. (Contains 10 figures.)

It is widely known that there is a dearth of education research in South Africa which takes as its methodological basis experimentation. The emphasis has been on educators' and learners' experiential understanding in the first decade of democracy after apartheid, when qualitative research predominated. The article investigates, first, the extent of experimental and quasi experimental research designs. Second, we examine, drawing upon a sample of theses which self-report as experimental and quasi-experimental research, the extent to which such methodologies are actually deployed and with what success or efficacy. And, third, we interrogate the associations of experimental and quasi-experimental designs with particular disciplines within education. This article points out the problems with random assignment of participants into experimental and control group in educational settings. Most of the experimental research is concentrated in three institutions in the Gauteng Province, while there are six institutions where this methodology is not used. Also, the experimental designs are prevalent in the psychology of education discipline. This points, ultimately, to the lack of supervision capacity in the experimental designs in South African higher education institutions. (Contains 2 notes, 7 tables, and 3 figures.)

The Project Postgraduate Educational Research (PPER) data indicate that case study is the most popular methodology among South African education masters and doctorate students in the period 1995-2004. This article reflects on the reasons for the preference for case study by considering epistemological and contextual factors. It unpacks the links between the methodological choice of case study, on the one hand, and the thematic focus and sectoral location of theses, on the other. While acknowledging the strengths of case study methodology regarding manageability, depth and experiential texture, the article argues that the predominance of case study limits the applicability of research to wider questions of policy and implementation, and thus contributes to the hiddenness of students' voices in public discourse around education. It suggests ways of enhancing the wider relevance of case studies through multiple case designs, sequential case studies, mixed method designs and synoptic reviews. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

Knowledge generation over the decade 1995-2004 in South Africa, and its relationship to the changing nature of socio-economic landscapes, suggests an ever closer relationship between the research produced in higher education, and its social and scientific purposes. These have been identified largely by the State through its regulatory frameworks, economic, and social agendas. In this article we examine the research generation of postgraduate students of education in South African higher education institutions in the first decade after apartheid. Using the Project for Postgraduate Education Research (PPER) as an example, we explore the role of large-scale research projects in South Africa, and how such work might respond to Government priorities, as well as issues identified by society and the academy in partnership with the State. (Contains 7 endnotes and 8 tables.)

What emerges repeatedly in research regarding language choice in South Africa is that people negotiate culture, face and identity through more than one language, and balance the need for modernity and the value of tradition, together with awareness that multiculturalism is normative in South Africa. South African scholarship focusing on bilingualism is also informed by the experiences of other countries in which multilingualism has become a feature of language planning. In South Africa, parents are not blind consumers of hegemonic languages, and learners are not insensitive to the dangers of language attrition or subtractive bilingualism. This paper argues, based on its focus on the gaps between policy intentions, research and practices, for closer collaboration between education sectors (the tertiary, and the primary and secondary) in South Africa to better support the development of multilingualism as envisaged by national and higher education language policy documentation.

The University of KwaZulu-Natal approved its bilingual language policy in 2006 based on the framework of the National Language Policy for Higher Education of 2002. The guiding principles of this policy suggest that the university develops the use of isiZulu as a language of instruction and communication, in line with recommendations of the Ministerial Committee report, which investigated the development of indigenous African languages as media of instruction in higher education. The implementation of the bilingual policy began in 2008, under the responsibility of the university's language board and faculties. Whilst debates on the policy itself are endless, there are foreseen challenges in its implementation. This is a case of "acquisition planning" as in effect acquisition of isiZulu as a second language will be expected from all the university staff and students. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of these challenges and to identify steps towards language policy implementation. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper explores the impact of a specially designed programme of communicative strategies on English second language (ESL) development in a scaffolded case study that set out to promote teacher-guided, constructive learner talk in the outcomes-based education arts and culture classroom. The programme was implemented in a multilingual secondary school in Durban, South Africa, and focused on four groups of Grade 8 (aged 12-13) learners in 2003 and the same four groups of learners in Grade 9 (aged 13-14) in 2004. The paper explores the design and implementation of this programme through a description of lesson strategies which were devised and implemented with the help of educators in the school. Also described in the article are the assessment strategies used to ascertain what learning and progress in learner talk was made over a two-year period. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from students and educators alike, the paper demonstrates that triangulation of the findings allows a richly textured narrative to emerge of learning and progress in an otherwise under-resourced and difficult setting. (Contains 8 tables, 9 figures and 2 notes.)

This article is about the national project to gather together information about postgraduate education research (PPER) in South Africa conducted over a ten-year period, namely 1995-2004, being the first decade in the democratic era for South Africa. The ideas informing the PPER Project are provided and the complex process of developing the PPER database is discussed. Although it is too early to yield firm findings about the trends, the article offers a tentative first level of description about postgraduate education research. (Contains 6 figures and 5 notes.)

This paper examines legislation concerning language policy and language choice in the UK and South Africa. In particular an account of the pressures and imperatives to which such policy development must respond is provided. The paper suggests that the comparison between South Africa and the UK is relevant and compelling, not least because both countries respond to an awareness of multilingualism and internationalism in both the schooling and higher education systems, though in different ways and with different effects. The paper explores the degree to which language policies may facilitate, but may also obstruct, language development and choice in HEIs in the UK and South Africa.

Explores the interface between literature, gender, culture, and language within an educational context. Examines the responses of Zulu boys and girls to the introduction of a new curriculum that integrated language and literary study in a rural school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Specifically, it shows how reading can lead to a more complex and critical notion of how gender portends differential access to power. (SM)

Realisation of multilingual education as a right has remained a controversial issue in South Africa. This is despite the Constitutional and legislative frameworks that support multilingual education. While the controversy undermines linguistic diversity in educational institutions in general, as suggested by the exclusion of African languages in the curriculum in some primary schools, it is in the curriculum of most institutions of higher learning where this linguistic diversity is undermined. Despite this bleak picture, some studies report promising trends regarding attempts at promoting multilingual education in some of these institutions. The article concludes by encouraging the universities to interrogate the language ideologies that underlie the language policies and implementation of the policies in the institutions of higher learning, and how these promote or infringe the language rights of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The merger of institutions of higher education in South Africa which has taken place in the last decade has presented several challenges to academic staff in Faculties of Education. The present article reviews the process of transformation in a particular school within Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Colleagues from institutions where there was little obligation to publish research found that at UKZN there was a strong research emphasis. The obligation to correct imbalances in race and gender representation amongst the staff coexisted with this emphasis and had to be reconciled with it. A system of incentives, research seminars and mentoring was devised and operated within a particular school for five years. Details of this system and the degree of its success are offered in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]