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Teachers' responses to student contributions in science classroom influence the resulting classroom interaction. To establish a heightened interaction, teachers need to use specific discursive moves. Using the notion of noticing as a lens, in this qualitative case study, I report on how the notion of noticing and responding with a suitable discursive move is important for science teachers to drive interaction. I use data from two South African science teachers' lessons and video-stimulated recall interviews (VSRI) to show instances where they employed specific discursive moves as a result of noticing and the interaction unfolded in a dialogic manner and instances where they 'failed' to notice a pertinent feature of a student's contribution and the interaction did not move beyond the initiation-response-evaluation (IRE) triad. I discuss the significance of teacher noticing in science classrooms as it influences how the interaction unfolds. I also offer implications for pre-service science teacher education.

Background: Within the multilingual context of KwaZulu Natal (KZN), learners in Grades 1-3 are taught in their native language which is isiZulu. From Grade 4, English or Afrikaans becomes the medium of instruction. Yet, many parents prefer that their children be taught in English. It is the assumption that young learners' self-concept and identity affect English language learning and academic achievement. Aim: The study analysed the interplay between self-concept, and identity in Grade 1's literacy practices. Setting: The study was conducted in a Grade 1 class in KZN, South Africa. Methods: The study drew on Critical Multimodal Discourse Analysis (CMDA) to collect, analyse and interpret data. Four participants were purposefully chosen to participate in the study. Data were generated from children's drawings and online interviews. Results: The findings showed how learners' self-concept and identity were influenced by their family contexts, and feelings experienced in homes. This study suggests that primary caregivers and teachers create spaces for literacy practice to increase learners' self-concept and identity as speakers and writers of English. Using alternative communication strategies allow learners to (1) think more deeply about what they value, (2) gain an understanding of who they are in relation to their family members and (3) reveal what their cultural preferences are. Conclusion: The study argues that besides peripheral factors, including family, teachers, and the community, children's self-concept and identity are influenced by their experiences within their social sphere, including school. The study recommends further research to explore teachers influence on young children's self-concept as English Second Language speakers. Contribution: The study's contribution towards knowledge is captured through CMDA to discover and understand learners' self-concept and identity as English language speakers and writers.

Generational experiences create unique contextualised meanings for society. This is the case with millennials in South Africa, many of whom use social media to organise their lives and engage with issues pertinent to them, such as South Africa being a rainbow nation. Some of these millennials are history teachers who, when at work, have to teach an official history which may contradict some of their social media engagements. This motivated this article of which the aim was to identify the dominant conversations when relating to the rainbow nation among a selected group of Black millennial history teachers. In this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) we used a qualitative approach in which 10 participants were involved in photo elicitation, semi-structured interviews, and focus-group discussions. Data were thematically analysed. The findings reflect millennials mainly engaged with violence, coloniality, victory, unity, and identity. The findings further suggest that the discourses were both contending and overlapping. We argue that millennial history teachers in South Africa hold different views about the rainbow nation: even though they paint the notion with predominant negativity, there is evidence of underlying positivity about it.

Using a qualitative historical research approach, this paper examines the contextual influences, including the formulation motive and their possible impact on policy implementation, of the South African (SA) e-Education White Paper 7 (WP7). A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was conducted on the policy and data was collected through semi-structured interviews (SSI) with purposefully selected participants. Findings of the study reveal tacit contradictions and tensions depicting a policy in contradiction with itself, carrying the hallmark of a symbolic policy. That is, a policy characterised by lack of direction, contradictions in its motive of formulation, no dedicated resources for its implementation, distorted communication resulting from the validity tests, and lack of "material consequences" (Rivzi and Lingard, 2009, p.8). The circumstantial context (socioeconomic and political) of its formulation, dictated to by the prescripts of the negotiated political settlement (NPS), that ushered in the new democratic South Africa (SA), is found to have taken precedence. It further overshadowed critical analysis on the educational needs, which would have informed a better strategic integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) in education. The circumstantial context resulted in a lack of a common goal between policy actors and interest groups. This, to the extent that the former thought of capitalising on the donations of the latter for their own political interests, while the latter saw in the formulation of such policy a way of imposing Government spending in favour of their businesses. These circumstances may have contributed to the policy's failure to reach its set textual objectives and goal by 2013.

Examples that teachers choose and use are fundamental to what mathematics is taught and learned, and what opportunities for learning are created in mathematics classrooms. This qualitative multiple case study, using Sfard's commognitive theory, draws attention to mathematics teachers' classroom practices during functions lessons which is unexamined in the South African context. In this article, data sets include unstructured non-participant classroom observations on functions, which were videorecorded. Sfard's commognitive theory served as an appropriate lens in interpreting and analysing teachers' discourses and giving meaning to teachers' classroom practices during functions lessons. The findings demonstrate that the example selection and sequences teachers used during functions lessons either constrained or enabled the development of endorsed narratives about the effect of parameters on the different families of functions.

Background: In South Africa, developing criticality among learners is essential for their careers in school and outside school. However, knowledge and understanding of critical literacy within the schooling context is unclear, with only patchy guidance available for teachers. Objectives: An intervention project was set up to discover how community signs could be used as a pedagogical tool for teaching learners to be critical readers. The focus of the study was teaching English second language learners to use language as an instrument for creative and critical thinking. Method: In this 'study within a study', the learners' role has been elevated to that of researchers. As 'researchers', the learners collected community signs from around their township and conducted interviews with community members. They analysed the signs and interview transcripts using Fairclough's method of critical discourse analysis. The social semantic theory was used to anchor this study. Results: The first attempt at being critical readers was the categorisation of data. Three categories that formed broad themes were observed. The learners' responses gave insight into their own 'processes' of reception and processes of production of the signs. The results suggest learners developing an ability to read signs as instantiations of township discourses. Conclusion: Teaching critical literacy awareness can be achieved when teachers use texts drawn from familiar contexts. The study contributes to knowledge on how unconventional texts can be used in the classroom to develop criticality among learners.

Background: This paper describes findings from research conducted on students who participated in a service-learning course in South Africa. Objective: The study aimed to understand how participants constructed their experiences of service-learning and to interrogate their emotional investments in these constructions. Method: Data were collected and analyzed using a psychosocial methodology, consisting of discursive and psychoanalytic readings of interview transcripts, reflective journal entries, and researcher field notes. Results: The discursive findings focus on how participants employed liberal traditional learning discourses to construct servicelearning as linear resulting in subject positions that reinforced prejudices and the power structures supporting these. A psychoanalytic reading of the data suggests that participants invested in these constructions to defend against their own anxiety related to uncertainty and guilt about privilege in an unfamiliar context. Conclusion: Students invest in liberal traditional discourses of service-learning for defensive reasons, which can be understood as arising from the intersubjective and social context in which the service-learning takes place. Teaching Implications: Recognizing prejudice as emanating from anxiety generated by the affective work required for servicelearning means thinking creatively about how to both contain and allow this affective work to take place in service-learning activities.

From a cognitivist theory stance, domain-specific subject knowledge is necessary for deep learning and cognitive advance. What opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance are provided in geography classrooms? This analysis of teaching in geography classrooms is framed by the concepts of deep learning, pedagogic discourse, and a curriculum of engagement. This article draws on Grade 10 and 11 lessons observed, recorded, transcribed, analysed and qualitatively interpreted. Analysis of pedagogic discourse shows diminished opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance. Geography is being taught in less elaborated ways and more for compliance, thereby hindering deep learning of the epistemic structure of geography. Furthermore, surface features of the curriculum including knowledge as "given" have displaced attention to underlying principles and conceptual meanings. These practices deny learners access to deep learning of powerful knowledge. Implications for social equality and teacher education are raised.

The low enrolment, lack of interest, exacerbated by the general poor performance in physical science in South Africa paints a gloomy picture about the status of physical science in the country. Despite the fact that there might be other factors at play, one factor which cannot be ignored is the discourse about the use of language in the science classroom as viewed by physical science teachers. In the study reported on here a quantitative methodology was followed in which a closed-ended questionnaire survey was used as data collection tool. In the study we examined South African physical science teachers' perceptions about the language use in science classrooms, and the study was informed by the Vygotskian socio-cultural theory (SCT). The target population from which a sample size of 37 physical science teachers was systematically sampled was high school classroom teachers and learners in Grades 10, 11 and 12 in the Ngaka Modiri Molema district of the North West province of South Africa. The study revealed that physical science teachers encountered difficulties with meanings of non-technical words used in science context. The conclusion drawn was that many physical science teachers were not proficient in the discourse of the science classroom and this often compromised their effectiveness in the teaching and learning of science. The main difficulty was confusion in differentiating between technical and non-technical words and the lack of convincing explanations of meanings of these words in teaching and learning. Key among the recommendations of this study was the need to address teachers' challenges with regard to the language use and the implications thereof.

Background: South Africa's long-standing reading crisis is well recognised. At various stages since 2000, national government has presented the inculcation of a culture of reading as a solution to this crisis. Objectives: This article critically interrogated the term 'culture of reading' as used in national government discourse with reference to basic education. By tracing the patterns of use of the term since 2000, it aimed to show the shifts and continuities in the government's understanding of the term 'culture of reading' and how this has shaped the reading landscape. Method: Drawn from a corpus of 331 texts, a sample of 58 texts produced by national government was analysed. Employing discourse and thematic analysis, key themes were extrapolated and their relation to reading within South Africa was explored. Results: The government's call for a culture of reading occurs predominantly in response to poor literacy results and at launches of campaigns and strategies focused on addressing these results. This occurs repeatedly without clear delineation of the term or justification for recycling failed initiatives. Instead, the term acts as a rhetorical tool to obfuscate the unsuccessful implementation of reading programmes. Conclusion: The government's failure to clarify what constitutes a culture of reading prohibits a clear picture of its understanding of the term. The frequency with which 'culture of reading' is promoted indicates a failure to consider alternative approaches to addressing the reading crisis. Contribution: This article highlights the need for government to re-evaluate its response to the reading crisis, taking cognisance of the South African context.

Background: Student leadership is central to the South African transformation agenda in higher education. Even so the understanding of student leadership, especially regarding its purpose and its implementation varies across contexts. Aim: This article aims to present propositions for student leadership practice considering the current diverse and often fragmented understanding of student leadership. Such propositions should aid the formation of a streamlined multi-levelled and systemic co-curriculum for student leadership that equips student leaders for their significant transformation task. Setting: The study was conducted in a South African higher education institution within the associated Student Affairs department. The university where data was collected is referred to as a historically White university. Methods: Social dream drawing was utilised to elicit data that enabled insights into student leadership. The data was analysed by pluralistically fusing discourse analysis with a psychodynamic interpretation. Results: The findings reveal a preoccupation in student leadership with South African historical narratives and the implications thereof for the present, and future, of the country. Additionally, student leaders indicated that there are complex psychological implications that result from their leadership experiences. Six propositions for student leadership are presented. Conclusion: The insights gained from the research study have the potential to contribute positively to higher education legislation and student development practice, particularly regarding the psychological conflicts that student leaders experience, and to the possible ways to resolve these. Because student leaders are key to the transformation agenda in South Africa, these insights can contribute directly towards their suitability in fulfilling this role.

Over the past two decades, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa (SA) have formulated various e-learning policies. E-learning policies are neither neutral nor value free as they reflect policy makers' ideas about the role of technology in teaching and learning. Although several e-learning policies have been developed in SA, few studies have examined the discourses that underpin them nor the implications they have on teaching and learning. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as its methodology and Feenberg's typology of e-learning discourses as its framework, the study analysed the dominant discourses that underpin e-learning policies in HEIs in SA. The study's findings show the dominance of deterministic and instrumentalist discourses in the e-learning policies. These discourses conceptualise technology as autonomous and value neutral. They also view technology as a magic wand that will solve all educational problems while fostering progress, effectiveness, and efficiency. Critical discourses on e-learning are largely marginalised in the policies. The paper contends that the dominant discourses in the e-learning policies analysed offer narrow technological fixes to nuanced educational problems in SA. They promote pedagogically poor applications of technology that perpetuate transmission models of education. These findings indicate the need to embed critical discourses in e-learning policies.

There is a significant body of research that indicates that the use of tablets to learn mathematics in elementary school motivates students to learn. Low mathematical attainment in international benchmarking tests of mathematics in South Africa led the authors to investigate the potential that the mobility of the tablet provided for children to learn how to reason using what Mercer called 'exploratory' talk, a form of dialogical interaction indicative of reasoning. In this article the authors investigate two grade 6 classrooms in two schools where students are learning mathematics using tablets. In this multiple case study, the authors videotaped children during mathematics lessons where they used tablets to solve mathematical problems, and the data were transcribed. Findings indicate that the tablets across both contexts facilitate what Mercer calls exploratory talk, which is indicative of reasoning and, therefore, learning.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the nature of small group discussion tasks and learners' talk during Physical Science lessons. The study was conducted during Physical Science lessons with three self-selected groups of Grade 11 learners from one school. A total of three lessons were followed. During the lessons, learners were given group tasks to complete, and their discussion was audio-recorded. The small group discussion tasks were coded using the revised Bloom's taxonomy. The audio-recordings were transcribed and coded using Mercer's three types of talk. The nature of tasks in the small group discussions was paired with the type of talk used as the group members were responding to the tasks and the frequency of these pairs was analysed. Analysis of the tasks vs. types of talk used indicated that learners predominately used cumulative talk to find solutions to understanding tasks. Exploratory talk was predominately used to find solutions to application tasks. The findings show that this relationship between the nature of small group discussion tasks and learners' type of talk is statistically significant at p = 0.05 level. No disputational talk occurrences were observed. It is noted that the type of talk used to address each type of task is related to the cognitive skills demanded by the task, group composition and the embracing of the spirit of ubuntu by the group members.

The nature of discourse within classrooms strongly predicts students' ability to think about, around, and with text and content (i.e. comprehension and critical-analytic thinking). However, little is known about the nature of classroom discourse in remote, rural South African schools, a context in which students face well-documented language challenges. The central aim of the present study was to explore the structure and content of discourse in South African classrooms using the 4 components of the Quality Talk model as a frame for our exploration (i.e. instructional frame, discourse elements, teacher moves and pedagogical principles). Grade 8 student participants from 3 classes and their teachers were sampled. Data sources included individual student language assessments, digital video recordings of classroom literacy practices and field notes. Findings revealed that discourse was predominantly characterised by an efferent stance toward text, and the discussions were primarily teacher controlled and directed. There was little, if any, evidence of students' critical-analytic thinking. Observations in terms of resilience and narratability as well as implications for research and practice are forwarded.

This paper attempts to present a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Nelson Mandela's defense speech "I am prepared to die," which was delivered in 1964 during his trial in what is often called as Rivonia Trial. More specifically, the paper tries to explore the hidden relations of power and ideologies that have been encoded in Mandela's defense speech. The main research question is: what are the ideological meanings Mandela tries to communicate through his speech, and how are these ideologies conveyed by CDA strategies? The paper draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as discussed in the writings of Fairclough (1989, 2013) and Van Dijk (1993, 2001, 2014). The analysis covers two levels of analysis: the lexical level and the pragmatic level of analysis. Both levels are discussed under the theoretical umbrella of CDA. The paper reveals that Mandela managed, by using specific CDA strategies, to communicate particular ideological meanings that reflect his political stance, as well as his rebellious spirit as the most distinguished revolutionary leader who struggles against racial discrimination in South Africa.

In this article we examine the nature of inter-semiotic and intermodal construction in the exposition of a solution for a geometry rider. In the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology, this case study involved an exploration of the oral discourse and visual texts used in a mathematics lesson. This research was intended to contribute to the understanding of the difficulties in teaching and learning geometry at school level. Results indicate that relational markings, oral and visual modalities in conjunction with gesturing constitute the primary semiotic resources employed by the teacher. This leads to the conclusion that the semiotic perspective, in conjunction with other perspectives on geometry teaching in schools, may provide a mechanism by which to reflect on the complexity of geometry teaching and learning in schools.

Background: The teaching of writing in English First Additional Language (EFAL) classrooms remains less explored in the Further Education and Training Phase (FET) in South Africa. This is so despite research showing a decline in the writing skills of second language learners, especially at the FET phase, calling attention to how writing is taught. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate writing approaches and teaching strategies used by teachers in teaching writing in selected EFAL FET classrooms in the Pinetown district. Method: A qualitative approach was adopted to observe five writing lessons across five schools using a video camera. Discourse analysis was used to analyse data. Results: The findings indicate that teachers mostly used a process approach to writing, which is in line with their curriculum. The study also found that teachers generally used a question and answer method to teach writing, which entails teachers controlling the interactions in the classrooms through a nomination-response cycle. Analyses of lessons also suggest that teachers creatively employed code-switching to explain writing concepts better. Conclusion: The study concludes that the effectiveness of any pedagogy depends on the teachers' knowledge and understanding of writing and approaches to writing. For effective development of learners' writing, the study recommends instruction methods that embrace collaborative writing activities in the learners' Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and the recognition of learners' home languages.

Socially inclusive strategies encourage empowering, progressive and sustainable responses to social challenges and needs. These strategies are made possible through inclusion and equitable consideration of diverse contributions of those affected by the problems, and who feel obliged to find solutions to the problems. In this paper, the principles of a free attitude interview technique as well as the critical discourse analysis are used to generate and analyse data. A participatory action research-oriented, socially inclusive teaching strategy was followed that is underpinned by critical emancipatory research principles. The study found that the listening and speaking skills of English first additional language learners improved significantly. This paper demonstrates how a socially inclusive teaching strategy can contribute to strengthening the teaching of listening and speaking skills in English first additional language, to Grade Four learners at a public farm school. Learners' inability to listen attentively and speak fluently requires the application of an adequately responsive teaching strategy that focuses on improving learners' listening and speaking skills in early stages of learning. The purpose of implementing the strategy is to contribute towards improving learners' listening and speaking capabilities. This will in turn improve learners' chances of doing well in other subjects.

Background: Children with disabilities stand to gain from an array of services and interventions to support their development. However, relationships between parents of children with disabilities and professionals can be fraught, with the potential that professionals undermine the role of parents and overlook their agency. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the nature of partnerships between parents of children with disabilities and professionals in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector, and the influences that shape partnerships within a particular context. Setting: This article documents the experiences of parents of children with disabilities from a national organisation, in respect of their partnerships with professionals. Methods: The research was a qualitative case study of a national organisation of parents of disabled children, the Disabled Children's Action Group (DICAG), that has engaged in many different partnerships within different provinces of South Africa. Data generation techniques were document analysis and focus group discussion with staff and provincial branch members of the national DICAG office in Cape Town. Results: The findings of the study provide a nuanced and contextually situated understanding of the complexity of parent-professional partnerships in the disability sector. A key issue that emerges is that to recognise and disrupt pervasive dominant discourses and their potential to weaken partnerships, professionals need to critically attune themselves to the situated experiences of those whom they seek to support. Conclusion: The findings suggest that there is a need for a rights-based social justice agenda to underpin parent-professional relationships, to address the power dynamics and pervasive discourses that oppress the parent actors.

South African public higher education has been dogged by student protests since 2015. Many of these disruptions raise pertinent issues for the sector, as well as bring about valued awareness and change. Critical scholars have remarked that in every social or political movement, something of pronounced importance is being said -- usually emerging from representatives of groups that have been marginalised, subordinated or even muted. In this article, a "logosemantic" theoretical perspective (Visagie, 2006), which is also referred to as "key theory" (Visagie, 2006; Van Reenen, 2013) is utilised to determine some driving conceptualisations emerging in the "languaging strategies" (Stewart, Smith & Denton, 2012) of contemporary student movement culture in South Africa. Not discounting significant research that investigates the impact of the digital age on the communication, mobilisation and sustaining of social movements, this article takes a critical look at grounding concepts that may be identified in the discursive formations of the movements. These are taken to be neither new nor unique, either in essence or manifestation. However, the divisions and polarisations they expose, signal an urgent need for some communicative reform in the "imagined community" (Anderson, 2016) of the academy.

Background: Forging 'new' decolonial education curriculum policy reform with ill-conceived intents may lead to both socio-political and economic pathologies and failure. Aim: The aim of the social sciences meta synthesis done was to consolidate gathered evidence from published scientific articles on decolonial curriculum reform policies. It was critical during the process of synthesising to acknowledge the fact that Africans continue to experience multifaceted socio-political and economic shifts of being as influenced by a variety of global ideologies. Concerted decolonial efforts should be made to manage these matrices of material social constructs such that the contamination and decapitation of true African educational curricula, identities, cultures, values, ethos and principles are curtailed. Setting: The critical exploration of meta-data underpinned by a critical-dialectical perspective attempted to dig beneath the impact of coloniality of power on the conscious mind of an African intellectual. The critical social research analyses how the African colonised mind can effectively decolonise African university curriculum given their colonially captured mind. Method: An extensive search, guided by selected key words, yielded about 35 articles on decolonisation but were trimmed down to 15 as determined by my main focus thus: decolonial curriculum reform in post-colonial nation states. Results: Findings indicate that African scholars, political pundits and researchers tend to rely on the mentally embedded notion of caged colonial mentality (CCM) in advocating for decolonial curriculum reform, with little regard for the multifaceted seismic shifts that impact on the socio-politico-education life of post-colonial African existential Beings. Conclusion: I strongly advocate for the dismantling of systemic CCM and embrace those seismic shifts that incorporate contemporary decolonial projects when crafting the architecture for decolonial curriculum designs that build on appropriate knowledge, competences, skills, values, beliefs and practices from around the globe to buttress multiplicities of identities, while nevertheless retaining Africa's interests at the centre.

This article is an inquiry into how talking is used for learning. The focus is on utterances of significance where participants say something which brings some sense of surprise and cognitive dissonance, and the purpose is to develop an understanding of how such 'shaking utterances' contribute to learning. The study is conducted from a social interaction theory perspective and utilised conversation analysis methods to observe how such utterances come about, how they are sequentially organised, and how they contribute to learning. Findings indicate similarities in the origins and learning consequences of shaking interactions. The study demonstrates the value of conversation analysis research methods for the deepening of our understanding of the nature and learning benefits of talk in classroom settings.

In this article, the central argument is that research on the semiotic repertoire should also focus on how repertoires are racialized, and race is evoked through the semiotic repertoire. The article uses data from the South African educational context to advance a position in which semiotic repertoires simultaneously give and restrict access, evoke evaluation and construct identities in particular ways because of their entanglement with (racialized) bodies. I propose that this simultaneity can be theorized by viewing the black body as 'intercorporeal' and 'grotesque' (Bakhtin 1984). By drawing on such an approach, processes of racialization are explicitly connected to how semiotic resources are evoked in discourse. This article thus theoretically contributes to the recent movements in applied linguistics that view language as embodied, re-examine repertoires, and view language as multiplex and entangled. In addition, it also offers a framing that can theoretically challenge discourses of post-racialism with its multi-layered account of how race continues to be experienced as a significant form of meaning-making.

This paper argues that the South African postdoctoral fellow system is de-professionalising academic work by constituting postdocs as students who receive training from the university rather than employees who work for it. Ironically, it obscures this de-professionalisation with a discourse of postdoctoral fellowships as 'professional development' opportunities. This case is made through a critical discourse analysis which contrasts the way universities construct postdoctoral fellowships on their websites with a structural analysis of the functions postdoctoral fellows fulfil within a commodifying higher education system. Postdocs produce research outputs for universities more cheaply than employees, and in a way which makes universities score better on various metrics that only count permanently-employed academics. Considering Fairclough's ideas about the relationship between semiotic and other elements of institutions, the discourse of 'professional development' serves as a delaying and distracting tactic which keeps us from asking whether academic scholars should be supported by stable employment.

This article describes a critical literacy research project undertaken with English Additional Language students at a South African township school. Students were invited to take on the position of researchers in gathering and analysing bumper stickers found in commuter minibuses known as itekisi (taxi). These everyday texts in English and African languages are salient for the students' discourse communities. Bringing them into English lessons validates the use of languages and discourses that multilingual students inhabit and draws on their ability to move fluidly between languages. Framed by critical discourse analysis theory, this project aimed to facilitate students' abilities to develop and use critical literacy knowledge and skills in analysing taxi bumper stickers. The findings indicate that the students were able to demonstrate some criticality as they investigated multiple interpretations of the texts by community members and themselves. Inviting students to investigate texts drawn from their own communities was envisaged as enabling their development as critical readers with a social justice orientation to texts. However, their relentless negativity towards taxi drivers made it difficult for them to keep their focus on the texts, suggesting that teachers' selection of salient texts for lessons with a focus on critical literacy may not always achieve the intended outcomes.

Utilising the theoretical frameworks of theory of power and theory of performativity, this case study explored how learners exercised agency in the construction of their identity in school discourses. Data capture incorporated a mix of a survey, semi-structured interviews and field notes. Data was analysed using content analysis. A total of 90 learners participated in the survey. Fifteen learners, three teachers and three principals participated in semi-structured interviews. This paper reports on findings from the semi-structured interviews. Findings were twofold. First, schools used Foucault's mechanisms and instruments of constructing learner identity. Learners were subjected to a constant gaze at schools. Second, learners became agentic in schools and asserted their own identities. Some of these identities clashed with the identity of the 'ideal learner' of schools. Despite established subject positions in schools, learners created their own subject positions to counter limiting and constraining identities that were imposed by the school.

Drawing on a sociocultural understanding of identities as multiple and fluid, we investigate how six practicing teachers recruited their biographical resources in constituting their discourse identities in interviews. The South African context allows us to consider how systemic inequality shapes the identity resources available to teachers from diverse sociopolitical backgrounds. Using inductive thematic analysis, we found that racial positionality impacted the nature of the biographical resources at each teacher's disposal. The two teachers from advantaged backgrounds drew only on their own schooling experiences, whereas initial teacher education featured strongly in the identities of the other teachers. Two teachers chose to teach in schools serving poor communities, which contributed to their identities as teachers who give their students an escape from their home situations, in part because of resonance with the teachers' own home and schooling experiences. All six teachers' identities reflected both the discipline of science and a concern for student success, and evidenced the teachers' resourcefulness in using biographical resources to negotiate their identities in their current teaching contexts. The results suggest that science teacher educators would do well to pay attention to the diverse and idiosyncratic words that student teachers use to express their emerging identities, and the science teaching role-models available in their biographies. In addition, there is value in exposing student teachers to a range of teaching practices from which they can recruit material for their developing identities, rather than promoting a particular pedagogy.

Post-secondary South African education policy is pinning its hopes of increased access to education on technological changes, especially in light of increased demand for education while persisting with fiscal austerity. This article examines one policy text--the Open Learning Policy Framework--that exemplifies this techno-solutionist policy logic in the post-secondary education and training sector. Structured around the triad of "context-text-consequences", the article conducts a critical discourse analysis of the Open Learning Policy Framework, positing that techno-solutionism performs an under-labouring role for other more commonly critiqued logics such as new managerialism, social justice as equality and/or equity, and human capital theory. It further troubles the Open Learning Policy Framework's definition of "open learning", examining it as a truth/power regimen that constructs the object it espouses to describe. Finally the article considers some of the consequences of such a pivot in education, including the invisible transformation of relations in pedagogic labour, and the subjectivity of students engaged in "open learning" as individualistic neoliberal "lifelong (l)earners". The article attempts to "raise awareness" of such relations and their constraints on imagination, with the aim of provoking alternative imaginings about how technology and education might produce humanising and emancipatory education.

This study, conducted in one high-achieving secondary school in a disadvantaged area in the Western Cape province of South Africa, asks whether mathematics teachers alter their "talk" across the face-to-face and computer-based lessons. Data were gathered through video recordings of teacher/student interactions across ten face-to-face and computer-based mathematics lessons conducted by two teachers. Findings indicate that the teachers studied significantly altered their "talk" across the two contexts, with a medium effect size. Further, a significant association at a medium effect level between any two of the three variables--location of lesson, "talk" type and scale of interaction--was found. In particular, teachers used significantly less mathematical talk in the computer lessons. As language is the primary mediator of conceptual acquisition (Vygotsky, 1978), this calls into question what mathematical concepts are learnt in a computer-based lesson.

One of the major challenges in teaching English to speakers of other languages is the issue of inadequate contact time between teachers and learners and between learners and comprehensible English language input. This paper emanated from a burning desire to help learners in South African educational institutions, especially those in remote areas, increase the opportunity for learner-teacher-content contact. The deployment of mobile phones, as tools to supplement teaching and learning off-campus and after school hours, is presumed in this study to be one attempt to increase contact time for learners. A qualitative research methodology, which is interpretive in nature, was used. The study used a descriptive case study research design. It used a sample of 44 learners, drawn from Grade 9 English First Additional Language learners in one school in the Eastern Cape. The participants were sampled, using purposive and volunteer sampling techniques. Mobile phones were used to collect data, which was in the form of short message services (SMSs) and Mxit messages. A questionnaire with open-ended questions was also used to collect data about learners' perceptions of the use of these devices in the educational process. The data were analysed by incorporating elements of both content analysis and discourse analysis. Despite the fact that some participants were of the view that SMS would corrupt their language and spelling, findings indicate that most SMS and Mxit texts produced by participants displayed full sentences, punctuation marks, correct spelling of most words, acceptable grammar and proper sentence use. Further, findings indicated that while SMS and Mxit communication were largely characterised by short hand and informal writing, when learners were aware that they were using these platforms for learning purposes, the traditional rules of formal writing applied. We conclude that mobile devices can improve the language acquisition of second language learners. We recommend consideration of the official inclusion of mobile devices as supplementary learning tools in the learning programme in South Africa.

We offer an account of how we, a research team of three South African academics, have dialogued with multiculturalism and equity through collective poetic autoethnographic inquiry. The focus of the article is on our learning through reading and responding to published autoethnographies by three other South African academics. We share our learning about how poetry and dialogue can facilitate a generative entanglement with autoethnographies written by others. The article highlights the promise of collective poetic autoethnographic inquiry for opening up spaces for dialoguing with multiculturalism and equity.

Black women in South Africa (SA) face multiple and interlocking systems of oppression every-day; among them gender-based violence, economic marginalization, and the legacy of racialized and gendered subjugation under centuries of colonization, followed by the apartheid regime. On the heels of South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, the HIV/AIDS pandemic quickly overwhelmed health and social support systems, resulting in the highest AIDS incidence in the world, to this day. This article engages with a monumental artwork called the "Keiskamma Altarpiece," which was created by a group of (mainly) women in a rural area of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. I "read" the "Altarpiece" as testimony and storytelling against the shaming and silencing of women's lives and experiences in South Africa, and argue that it calls us to become response-able to its witness. Using discourse and esthetic analysis, informed by post-colonial memory studies, I argue for better memory practices and increased awareness of the legacies of disease, and engage with Roger Simon's concept of remembering otherwise.

Post-apartheid schooling in South Africa is challenged with the task of contributing towards social justice, as has been evident from the emergence of a plethora of education policies following the promulgation of the South African Schools Act in 1996. One of the most significant ways in which social justice can be cultivated in schools, especially where exclusion and marginalisation have been in ascendancy for decades, is through improved pedagogical activities, which receive focus in this article. The article focuses on investigating how the learning goals for Grade 11 Economics with the aid of an educational technology, in particular Facebook, engender opportunities for socially just relations in the classroom. The researcher is concerned with how these learning goals are related to three underlying aspects of Economics education, namely sustainable development, equity (including equality) and economic development, and how they may or may not engender opportunities for social justice. Critical discourse analysis is the research approach used to analyse learners' comments on Facebook in relation to their understandings of three films. It was found that it is possible to teach and learn education for social justice in the classroom. Learners treated one another equally; enacted their pedagogical relations equitably; and learnt to become economically aware of their society's developmental needs. Thus, it is recommended that education for social justice be cultivated in school classrooms through the use of Facebook.

Most studies on campus and private policing take on political, anthropological, sociological, and criminological perspectives. Although there were investigations on policing in South Africa during apartheid, scant research has focused on how students in South African higher education (SAHE) relate their experiences of campus policing. Due to recent unrest on SAHE campuses and radical changes that include the militarization of police forces, examining how students perceive the legitimacy and integrity of campus policing is vital. As such, this paper presents a discourse analysis focused on descriptions of students' campus experiences in the aftermath of the #FeesMustFall (#FMF) protests. Combining critical discourse analysis (CDA) with systemic functional linguistics, through transitivity, it offers insight into the ideological power struggles between students and police. It shows the types of voices students reveal as an aggrieved group in the hope of identifying non-aggressive approaches to address emotionally charged events (such as protests). Adding transitivity analysis to CDA provides a solid framework for decoding radical meanings at the peak of chaotic situations in which social change in post-apartheid South Africa can be facilitated by understanding marginalized groups.

This paper is based on a study conducted to establish if academic practice in a university designated as Azania is aligning or diverting from the expectations of the rising knowledge society in South Africa. The paper is motivated by the emerging national needs specific to the production, dissemination and application of knowledge as the country takes steps towards knowledge led development. The general assumption is that academic practice in universities is spontaneously responding to the needs of its changing environment. Thus, to establish the position of academic practice in Azania, institutional and national documents were examined from a neo-institutional perspective through qualitative discourse analysis. The results showed that research, teaching and outreach at the University was responding to national needs. Thus, academic practice in Azania is aligning more than diverting from the expectations of the rising knowledge society. However, considering that the study based on only document analysis a focus on other data sources is recommended.

The 2015-2016 South African higher education students' movement proved historical for our country in bringing to our dinner tables: issues of higher education transformation and decolonisation; institutional culture(s); curriculum reform; the need to foreground and make inclusive assessment in education; the coloniality in our knowledge production, and more. Influenced by the emergence of the student movements and the critique they have brought to South African higher education, we bring to the fore the often silent critical reflections on the purposes of higher education in general, and in South Africa especially, as they relate to teaching and learning. We propose that the purposes of higher education in relation to teaching and learning ought to respond to (1) context, (2) democratic difference, and (3) cosmopolitan perspectives. We argue that discourses, phases and logics about South African higher education have tended to disregard and, at times, blur the context and differences as well as cosmopolitan perspectives. Using the notion of Ubuntu-Currere, we re-imagine how teaching and learning could respond to context, difference and cosmopolitanism with examples from the South African higher education experience.

The colonial nature of South African universities remains a source of debate among students and academics. Decolonization as rethinking academic institutional practices seems less controversial; the specificity of how to decolonize the academia is the core of divergent arguments and contesting ideologies. Consequently, many suggestions and methods for the decolonization of South African universities have been proffered. Although some of these suggestions are pertinent, a critical question about what should South African academe decolonize from needs to be engaged. This requires a critical, theoretical and intellectual discourse of coloniality in order to rethink the academia in South Africa. Drawing from Anibal Quijano's critical discourse of "coloniality of power," this paper (re)visits the nature of coloniality, explores approaches to decolonization and situates these understandings to the academia in postcolonial South Africa. A polycentric approach to decolonization is supported with a goal of decolonization as innovations.

It is vital that in-service teachers transcend their professional knowledge, towards a recurrently developing research base about transformative social justice issues. This paper provides a theoretical lens from a South African education policy perspective on how in-service teachers could develop professional knowledge about transformative social justice teaching in public schools. Scholars argue that when in-service teachers surpass their professional knowledge base, it empowers them to transform learning spaces. Discourse analysis was applied to the "Continuous Professional Teacher Development" (CPTD) policy to understand professional knowledge and to identify transformative signposts for social justice teaching emerging from the policy. The findings show that the main barrier to professional development is a perceived lack of attention to the value and applicability of transformative social justice teaching practices for in-service teachers, while teaching and engaging in CPTD activities. Conclusions and recommendations were drawn based on the analysed data. The study recommends that for in-service teachers to perform more competently in their learning spaces, while maintaining the reputation of both their designation and the profession, they must engage in a continuous process of professional development.

In South Africa, the school textbook remains a powerful source of content knowledge to both teachers and learners. Such knowledge is often engaged uncritically by textbook users. As such, the worldviews and value systems in the knowledge selected for consumption remain embedded and are likely to do powerful ideological work. In this article, we present an account of the ideological orientations of knowledge in a corpus of school economics textbooks. We engage the tenets of critical discourse analysis to examine the representations of the construct "poverty" as a taught topic in the Further Education and Training Economics curriculum. Using Thompson's legitimation as a strategy and form-function analysis as specific analytical tools, we unearth the subtext of curriculum content in a selection of Grade 12 Economics textbooks. The study reveals how power and domination are normalised through a strategy of economic legitimation, thereby offering a "legitimate" rationale for the existence of poverty in the world. The article concludes with implications for curriculum and a humanising pedagogy, and a call for embracing critical knowledge on poverty in the South African curriculum.

Employability development is a focus of contemporary engineering education, both abroad and in South Africa, from where this study emanates. However, pedagogic initiatives in service of this goal may fail to take into consideration the ideological underpinnings of this emphasis on employability, as well as of the curricula developed in its service. This study utilises discourse analysis as a tool to analyse texts relating to a final-year course pairing offered to electrical engineering students, which explicitly aims to develop employability skills. Drawing on Fairclough's three-dimensional conception of discourse, the texts, which include faculty handbook extracts, course handouts, timetables, and additional teaching materials, provide insight into the ideological underpinnings of the courses as well as the context of their creation. The findings of the study reveal the neoliberal foundation of the course-pairing in general and, more specifically, three discourses that interact throughout the courses: the 'entrepreneur of self' discourse, the discourse of 'inevitability' and the 'one-size-fits-all' discourse. The study concludes by suggesting that perpetuating these discourses will lead to replication within the engineering industry, as opposed to transformation and innovation.

This article considers the nature and trajectory of the African National Congress's (ANC) education policy discourses from its founding in 1912, until its repatriation from exile by 1992. The broad issue that this article considers is how to explain why the ANC was inadequately prepared to address the educational challenges of a democratic South Africa. The article considers the relationship between its political struggles against segregation and apartheid and the particular educational focus that it favoured during this period. From its inception, the ANC was actively involved in the political arena, with the purpose of opposing racist rule. The article suggests that its involvement in the education arena was subordinate to its political focus, with consequences for the type of educational change and curriculum orientation that it favoured. Employing a historical-sociological perspective, we divide ANC involvement in politics and education into two broad and distinct periods. The first period from 1912 to 1960 examines ANC involvement within South Africa. The second period from 1960 to 1992 examines the ANC in exile. We end the article with some discussion of the ANC's education reform trajectory from 1992 to 1995, in other words, its educational orientations during the context of political negotiations, and the first years of a democratic South Africa. It will be argued that during both periods, the ANC focused on struggle politics that relegated education to a position ancillary to its political struggle, which resulted in discursive continuities in its educational orientations. Despite some contestation, these continuities were characterised by their remarkably consistent support for a traditional liberal education across the existence of the organisation.

In many emerging economies worldwide, and in South Africa in particular, sizeable investments have been made in education with the hope of increasing literacy rates and hence producing a workforce that will fit into the job market. Thus it is important to understand the context and literacy materials within South African classrooms and their impact. This article looks at the novel "Broken Promises" by Roz Haden, which is read in many South African classrooms. From a post-structural feminist theory and functional language theory, we analyse how the portrayal of characters and storyline can have an impact on young readers' identity construction in relation to the novel's predominant discourses. The findings show that men are still portrayed as dominant in their own right within society whereas women are defined in relation to men. Unchallenged, this portrayal can continue to perpetuate gendered stereotypes, which would affect young people's functionality in society. We therefore argue that while novels are good for improving literacy among young people, the messages they contain should be deconstructed and challenged so that young people can make informed decisions regarding their gender identities.

The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research project, which explores the relationship between identity/subjectivity and pedagogy in a high school subject English classroom during a time of ongoing social change in South Africa. Specifically, it places under scrutiny the multiple subject positions that a selected student, Sonia, takes up in relation to a unit of work that invites students to historicise their identities. This is empirical classroom-based research which, for the purposes of this article, has its focus narrowed to extracts of lesson transcripts where Sonia participates in whole-class discussion, a multimodal artefact she produces collaboratively, and excerpts from a student focus group. Sonia is one of five girls who self-identify as Afrikaans in a Grade 11 subject English classroom at an elite girls' school, where the normative position is that of an English, white, South African student of Anglo-Saxon descent. Using poststructuralist theories of discourse and subjectivity, I analyse a number of pedagogic moments when Sonia's classroom interactions enable her multiple and sometimes contradictory subject positions to become visible. The argument made is two-fold. Firstly, I argue that Sonia's ethnic affiliation with the Afrikaans-speaking community in South Africa produces shifting and contradictory positionings influenced by the repositioning of Afrikaner identity in the social and political landscape post-1994. Secondly, I argue that the discursive manoeuvres made by Sonia could offer insights into the ways in which marginal(ised) subjectivities operate in the discursively constructed classroom space. The implications for discussion-based subject English classrooms are then touched upon.

The new Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (MRTEQ) document outlined by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) envisages a particular type of teacher. These teachers need to be, amongst other things, reflective, committed, critical practitioners with sound content knowledge (DHET 2011). It is with this in mind that a remark made by a foundation phase teacher in Limpopo raised several questions for the research team investigating communities of practice in the foundation phase. The fact that teachers considered themselves to be "workshopped", where something is done to them, is in opposition to the kind of teacher envisaged by government, which sees teachers as pivotal to educational transformation. This paper unpacks the implications of teachers constructing themselves as "workshopped" and its relation to workshops as vehicles through which knowledge is acquired. Using Halliday's (1994) systemic functional linguistics (SFL), two instances of this statement used by teachers are analysed. We consider how the mode of the workshop currently presented as a form of professional development is inimical to knowledge acquisition and how it may even negatively impact a teacher's ability to reflect on pedagogical gaps.

Theoretical ambiguities in curriculum studies result in conceptual mayhem. Accordingly, they hinder the development of the complicated conversation on curriculum as a verb. This article aims to contribute to reconceptualizing curriculum studies as a dynamic social practice that aspires to thinking and acting with intelligences and sensitivity so as to understand oneself and others. It also raises awareness that equating all forms of research on curriculum with curriculum studies dilutes the scope of the conversation. This exploration asks two key questions: What is the nature of doctoral theses in the field of education's theoretical contributions to nuances of curriculum (curriculum, curriculum development, and curriculum studies)? In what ways do these theses perpetuate or even add to current ambiguities in the discipline of curriculum studies? The exploration of these two questions draws on a critical meta-study of 511 theses completed in South African universities (2005-2012) conducted using a three level process. It appears that the main detractions of these theses are that some of them see curriculum studies as a dumping ground and others make no theoretical contribution to the discipline. The article concludes by suggesting ways which would encourage the intellectual advancement of curriculum studies through rigorous disciplinarity.