High levels of HIV-related stigma in South Africa continue to hinder effective management of the pandemic. Although the Department of Basic Education incorporates HIV and stigma education into the life skills curriculum, classroom teaching remains largely theoretical and does not enable children to grasp the deeper social complexities and intersectional factors that drive and sustain stigma. An arts-based, experiential pedagogy offers a transformative paradigm for life skills teaching by allowing children to engage emotionally and critically with the realities of people affected by or infected with HIV. This study used an action research approach integrating interactive, arts based strategies in a Grade 5 Life Skills classroom to support children in exploring HIV stigma with the aim of reducing stereotypical thinking and fostering a more nuanced, intersectional understanding of the pandemic's social implications. In the first cycle, we examined children's initial perceptions of HIV and then applied arts based pedagogies to transform their thinking by identifying and challenging negative assumptions and promoting more informed and empathetic insights. Findings show that arts based methods surfaced children's existing interpretations of HIV, highlighted knowledge gaps, and encouraged greater empathy. These outcomes may help teachers bridge the gap between theoretical curriculum requirements and children's lived realities, making HIV education more relevant and engaging.
This paper reports on the servant leadership practices of female school principals and how these practices improved the quality of education in rural schools in South Africa. Using a feminist theoretical lens, the researcher explored how female principals conceptualised and enacted servant leadership in under-resourced school contexts, and how this leadership approach promoted educational quality despite systemic and gendered constraints. The research was exploratory and interpretative in nature, drawing on qualitative interviews with six female principals and six female teachers across three provinces in South Africa. The data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis. The findings revealed several key themes: servant leadership as a moral and spiritual calling; relationships as the foundation of leadership; collective leadership and shared vision; holistic development of learners; motivation through empathy and staff development; and balancing accountability with a servant ethos. The study suggests that servant leadership, grounded in feminist praxis, offers a viable framework for educational transformation from the perspective of female principals. These findings contribute to the growing body of literature on gendered leadership and carry important implications for educational policy and school governance reform.
Students with intellectual disabilities face persistent challenges in conventional educational systems due to difficulties in abstract reasoning, verbal comprehension, and motor coordination. While inclusive education has gained global momentum, there remains a critical gap in the availability of adaptive, engaging, and accessible instructional media tailored to this learner group. This study aims to address that gap by designing and evaluating a prototype of visual learning media rooted in interactive communication and cognitive design principles. Conducted at SLB Amal Mulia, a special education institution in South Jakarta, the research employs a qualitative, participatory approach informed by asset-based community development. Data were collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and visual activity documentation involving 30 students with mild intellectual disabilities. The prototype incorporated three interactive models: spot-dot drawing, object matching, and multi-sensory visual media. Results revealed significant improvements in student attention span, emotional engagement, and visual task completion. Students demonstrated increased motivation, social interaction, and verbal expression, particularly in response to high-contrast visuals and interactive stimuli. The study concludes that visual learning when grounded in user-responsive design and implemented with educator facilitation can meaningfully enhance learning experiences in inclusive settings. Its key contribution lies in merging pedagogical theory with visual communication practice to create replicable learning tools for inclusive classrooms. These insights contribute to the fields of special education, inclusive design, and multimodal learning, aligning with the journal's scope on education innovation and accessibility
Service-learning (SL) is a recognised form of experiential learning, of which the benefits for students' academic and personal growth are well researched. However, traditional SL models were developed without intentional regard to generational cohorts, and the advent of COVID-19 highlighted the lack of flexibility within these models. In this article, we explore how an existing SL model at a South African university of technology (UoT) can be adapted to align with Generation Z (Gen Z) students' learning preferences and where SL could be pursued during times of disruption. Purposive sampling was conducted to generate data from 43 Gen Z students who had participated in SL projects, and from seven SL lecturers who coordinated SL projects at this UoT. Semi-structured interviews, a focus group interview, and an online survey were administered to collect data. The findings reveal a Gen Z cohort profile of students who use multiple modes for learning and who are intrinsically motivated, hardworking, determined, compassionate, and technologically connected yet still value face-to-face contact. Regarding students' SL experiences in relation to Mezirow's transformative learning (TL) theory, they reported interacting with all phases of critical reflection and elements of rational discourse; however, action was limited. The findings aided in integrating Gen Z's learning needs directly into a flexible SL model that coalesced TL theory with the identified emergent themes. Enhanced by six strategic implementations, the new flexible model was integrated into the existing SL model employed at the UoT via four interlinked phases: pre-planning, collaborative planning, strategic implementation, and collaborative evaluation and reflection. The flexible model allows for adaptation to students' diverse learning preferences, evolving community needs, and sustainability in times of uncertainty.
This paper explores tutors' experiences and perceptions of integrating translanguaging pedagogy into a tutorial system at a South African university. South African universities grapple with creating language policy implementational spaces for epistemic access and, in response, University of the Free State has adopted translanguaging through its tutorial system to mediate epistemic access. However, no studies have yet been conducted to examine the experiences and perceptions of tutors who must often implement translanguaging pedagogy. Hence, this paper aims to fill this gap by exploring tutors' experiences and perceptions regarding integrating translanguaging pedagogy into the tutorial system in various disciplines. This qualitative study deployed focus group and semi-structured interviews to elicit the experiences of tutors facilitating multilingual classrooms. The study is framed within the ubuntu translanguaging framework. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings show that tutors reported supportive, resistant, and contradictory perceptions on the integration of translanguaging pedagogy in the tutorial system.
In this article I examine the role of English as the language of instruction for academic literacy teaching in African universities. I employ a critical literature review and a self-reflexivity lens to examine how English as a language of instruction influences academic literacy provision. To do this, I reflect on my positionality and analyse studies on the intricate politics of language in Africa, and how they both implicate academic literacy pedagogy. I argue that while understanding the rules of English is essential for clarity, academic literacy practitioners should not fixate on them. Rather, they should focus on the development of cognitive competencies such as critical thinking, which allows them to socialise students into disciplinary/university ways of knowledge production, dissemination, or contestation. Furthermore, obsessing over the mechanics of English in academic literacy contributes to entrenching the prestigious position of English in African universities while marginalising and disempowering many students and staff with different linguistic traditions and repertoires. Finally, academic staff who subscribe uncritically to this model of academic literacy teaching expose their own intellectual inferiority, maintaining the coloniality of knowledge and language in Africa. To this end, I propose an academic literacy model that focuses on the cognitive foundation of African students to ensure that they see knowledge as negotiated or contested.
During 2025, Centre for African Language Teaching (CALT) hosted a series of interconnected scholarly engagements under the theme, Ukumlllselwa kwisiXhosa: Ukucinga Ngokutsha Ngemfundo Yootitshala Kunye Nokuveliswa Kolwazi (Rooted in isiXhosa: Reimagining Teacher Education and Knowledge Production). These engagements included a pre-conference webinar in August, and the Inaugural CALT Conference in October. Together, they created a sustained platform for dialogue, reflection, and collaboration. This report provides a comprehensive account of the CALT 2025 pre-conference and conference events by analysing their contributions to ongoing debates on multilingual education and decolonial pedagogy. It further reflects on the broader implications of these engagements for the future of African language education in South Africa and beyond.
This reflective paper is written by a multi-stakeholder key advisory set (KAS) team consisting of university academics, engagement staff, and community-based practitioners from an Indigenous group called the Gamtouers, in South Africa. It critically examines the pre-project finalisation stage of a National Research Grant initiative, aligned with the New Frontiers in Research Fund multilateral project. During this stage, the KAS team engaged school and community stakeholders to explore the potential for ethical, reciprocal partnerships rooted in shared histories and lived experiences. Guided by critical pedagogy and participatory praxis, the process emphasised co-construction of meaning, reflexivity, and disruption of hierarchical knowledge flows. Two creative and dialogic methods were employed: a short video capturing the team's physical movement through school spaces, attuning to affective and sensory impressions; and the co-creation of palindrome poems, used to surface embodied insights and invite reciprocal reflection. Analysis of these artefacts revealed two central themes: collective belonging and relational trust, and transformative learning through uncertainty and shared exploration. These highlight the power of dialogic knowledge-making in fostering connection, vulnerability, and shared purpose. However, a key tension also emerged: initial hesitancy and power asymmetries in engagement-particularly in navigating institutional identities and unequal access to research language and authority. The paper makes a methodological contribution by showing how imaginative artefacts-visual and poetic-can humanise pre-project engagement. It argues that such practices form vital groundwork for equitable collaborations, especially in settings influenced by systemic inequality and educational marginalisation.
This policy analysis study examines how education policy research has been framed in recent decades, and its implications for inclusive education. The study draws on Ball's (1993) conceptualisation of policy effects, which distinguishes between first-order effects that focus on policy outcomes and evaluation, and second-order effects that address unintended consequences and foundational assumptions. Policy research focused on first-order effects takes a rationalist approach, while policy research manifested in second-order effects takes a critical approach. Rationalist approaches, which prioritise evidence and evaluation, have dominated education policy research but fail to challenge the underlying logic of policy frameworks. In contrast, critical policy analysis approaches emphasise problematisation rather than problem-solving. To illustrate this situation, this study employs Bacchi's (2009) problematisation theory and "What's the Problem Represented to Be" methodological approach to analyse the inclusive education policy for Malawi. The critical policy analysis asks key questions about problem representation, manifestation, and reframing. The study argues that taking a rationalist approach to analyse policy frameworks leads to constructing inclusive education as a solvable issue rather than a complex socio-political challenge. The study demonstrates how rationalist assumptions obscure deeper systemic inequities and advocates dialectical or transformative policy research approaches that centre learners, teachers, and their ecosystems. The study concludes that reorienting education policy research towards critical perspectives can help to inform and promote more equitable and inclusive education systems.
This article examines how sustainable learning can be enhanced among vulnerable learners in primary schools. The article is framed by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and contemporary resilience scholarship. It adopts an interpretive qualitative design within a doctoral research project focused on school-community partnerships that support resilience and sustainable learning practices in rural primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data were generated through focus group discussions, reflective journals, and interviews with educators. They were analysed thematically to illuminate how learners and teachers co-construct adaptive strategies in challenging socioeconomic conditions. Findings reveal that sustainable learning and resilience in learners are not fixed personal attributes but a relational and contextual process fostered through caring pedagogies, life skills education, and supportive school-community partnerships. Learners' psychosocial competence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, and problem-solving emerged as central to both well-being and academic engagement. When teachers integrated culturally relevant life-skills activities and strengths-based feedback, learners displayed enhanced self-efficacy, adaptability, and hope. Conversely, deficit-oriented practices and rigid academic expectations undermined resilience. The paper concludes that enhancing sustainable learning requires transforming schools into ecosystems of care and sustainability, linking social-emotional learning with equity, digital access, and ecological awareness. Policy recommendations include embedding resilience education within the national curriculum, equipping teachers with trauma-informed practice, and aligning the Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support framework with cross-sectoral well-being initiatives. By conceptualising resilience as a foundation for sustainable learning, this study contributes to global debates on inclusive education, social justice, and the ethics of care in post-apartheid South Africa.
dited by Paul Webb, Mathabo Khau, and Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu Nomalungelo African Mind Publishers, 2024 274 pp. Print ISBN 978-1-0672535-0-9, E-Book- ISBN 978-1-0672535-1-6, E-Pub - 978-1-0672535-2-3 Open Access website: https://www.africanminds.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Education-Research-in-African-Contexts-Web.pdf Education Research in African Contexts: Traditions and New Beginnings for Knowledge and Impact, edited by Paul Webb, Mathabo Khau, and Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu is a comprehensive, timely text that showcases the significance of engaging with educational research methodologies and practices specifically designed to African settings. In this sense, it addresses a critical gap in academic literature by foregrounding African perspectives and realities in educational inquiry. Its focus on Indigenous research approaches such as storytelling, theatre, and eco-pedagogy, amongst others, demonstrates how research in African contexts can be decolonised so that African researchers can embrace solutions to address their unique regional challenges without having to rely on Western models. In this regard, for example, the use of Indigenous methodologies like the imbizo (South Africa) and baraza (Kenya) communal, oral-based traditions are presented as more effective and culturally relevant alternatives to standard Western research methods like focus groups.
This study explores the role of popular music in promoting epistemic justice and inclusive poetry pedagogy in South African Grade 10 English classrooms. Traditional poetry instruction often marginalises learners' cultural knowledge by privileging canonical texts, limiting access to literary meaning-making and reinforcing hierarchical knowledge structures. Drawing on a decolonial and social justice framework, this action research study engaged learners in iterative cycles where carefully selected popular songs were paired with poems to create meaningful connections between learners' cultural worlds and literary texts. The study involved five action research cycles in which poems were paired with culturally familiar songs in order to scaffold learners' understanding of poetic devices, themes, and tone. Data were generated through multiple methods, including open-ended questionnaires and classroom activities, and were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that integrating popular music legitimised learners' cultural experiences, disrupted exclusionary pedagogical practices, and fostered equitable access to literary interpretation. Learners demonstrated enhanced cognitive engagement, critical reflection, and appreciation of poetic forms, language, and themes. Learner responses further indicated that music functioned as a cognitive and affective scaffold, enabling them to connect abstract literary concepts with familiar cultural texts. The study further highlights the transformative potential of culturally responsive teaching practices that foreground learners' epistemic contributions, challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge, and enable inclusive literacy learning. By centring learners' voices and lived experiences, this research provides evidence that popular music can function both as a pedagogical tool and as a vehicle for epistemic justice, supporting social change and contributing to efforts to decolonise literature education in South African schools.
By employing participatory visual methodologies in the form of drawings, this study sought to explore Grade 2 Chinese learners' insights into the notions of strength and bravery as represented in traditional and diverse children's literature. The study demonstrated the premise that notions related to bravery and strength are socially constructed, and that traditional literature has firm gendered connotations related to these notions, often favouring male characters. For 16 weeks, learners at a bilingual school in Beijing, China gathered for a reading club where they engaged with traditional and diverse children's literature. In response, participants were invited to create drawings, accompanied by written and verbal feedback of book characters they thought were brave and strong. The results showed that after engagement with more diverse literature, the participants had more flexible and nuanced conceptualisations of bravery and strength that extended beyond gender and that were not confined to physical attributes. Rather, participants associated these attributes with resilience, perseverance, helpfulness, and moral courage. The study highlighted both the importance of diverse literature as a way of promoting social change and disrupting rigid gender norms, as well as the usefulness of drawings as a way of capturing nuanced insights, especially in a foreign language context.
In this paper, I explore the determinants of university students' acceptance and use of translanguaging in multilingual classrooms in Johannesburg, South Africa. Students in this context have largely been socialised into normative monolingual pedagogies that favour English. However, recent research has seen a paradigm shift, which highlights the limitations and inadequacies of these approaches in multilingual classes, where the language of instruction is not the mother tongue of most students. Research has also highlighted the benefits of translanguaging in such settings, benefits that transcends academia. While studies on translanguaging are gaining traction, there is a paucity of research that reflects on the determinants of translanguaging acceptance and uptake. Grounded in the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the study used a qualitative interpretive approach. Two focus group interviews consisting of seven and eight participants respectively, were conducted. Findings reveal that several factors determine translanguaging acceptance and uptake, and these include prior experience in translanguaging, aligning home languages to languages of the classroom, student-parent/guardian attitudes towards Indigenous languages, and intellectualisation of Indigenous languages and resource development, among others. The study emphasises that the efficacy and effectiveness of translanguaging in learning and teaching alone is insufficient for its successful implementation in this domain. It is hoped that these results contribute towards ensuring that measures are put in place to harness, and fully realise, the benefits offered by translanguaging in multilingual classrooms discourses.
The teaching of mathematics amidst the rising influence of globalisation in South Africa's basic education has come at the expense of the possibility of integrating local and Indigenous knowledge systems (LIKS) in the classroom. The scholarship of indigenisation reveals that mathematics teachers are confronted with pedagogical impediments that hinder a decolonised view informed by LIKS. Not much is currently understood about how mathematics teachers navigate these impediments during curriculum implementation, especially in rural areas. The Southern Theory underpinned the study because it advocates for the democratisation of marginalised Indigenous knowledges. This paper seeks to provide pedagogical insights into mathematics teachers' experiences during the integration of LIKS in their classrooms. A qualitative research approach was employed within an interpretivist paradigm. The study relied on an exploratory research methodology wherein nine participants were purposively sampled from the rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Data were generated through focus group discussions. The findings identified fundamental dimensions that hinder the implementation of LIKS although the participants appeared to have had sufficient pedagogical insights required for such integration. In conclusion, for an effective decolonisation of mathematics education, the implementation of the curriculum needs to be flexible to allow for the possibility of LIKS.
Research on multilingual pedagogies in English Second Language (ESL) classrooms is gaining momentum globally and in South Africa. However, more studies focus on the higher education context, universities in particular. Basic education and technical and vocational education and training are mostly ignored. This study explored translanguaging and code-switching as pedagogies of choice for ESL teachers, particularly in teaching literature. Literature teaching has been challenging ESL teachers for decades. The study sought to explore the use of translanguaging and code-switching as a relevant response in ESL literature teaching classrooms. It was grounded in the interpretivist paradigm to explore the teachers' experiences of using these multilingual pedagogies. This qualitative case study employed ubuntu translanguaging pedagogy as an epistemic lens because it grounds pedagogy in African philosophy and humanity, and because it sought to understand the teachers' premises in using these pedagogies in the context of South Africa. Four high school ESL teachers were purposively sampled and interviewed. Each teacher was observed teaching a lesson based on prescribed literature for Grades 10-12. In thematically analysing data, the findings were that translanguaging and code-switching enhance learner engagement and positively impact formal and informal assessments. There was also a view that school management typically discourages using such pedagogies out of fear that learners may lose a good grasp of English. Therefore, multilingual pedagogies should be intellectually infused in planning literature lessons. Furthermore, teacher training and language policies should be diversified to embrace the multilingual realities within the ESL classrooms. There is also a need for further research on how the use of multilingual pedagogies impacts other language skills such as reading and writing.
The linguistic diversity that multilingual students bring into their postgraduate studies, combined with the persistent dominance of English as the sole language of instruction and assessment at postgraduate level, especially in South Africa, requires urgent attention. This study seeks to critically examine the writing experiences of multilingual postgraduate students in a specific higher education institution in South Africa. Using Bakhtin's theory of heteroglossia, which proposes that language use is influenced by multiple-voice expressions, discourses, and power structures. This study explores how multilingual postgraduate students navigate and negotiate their linguistic repertoires while striving to produce writing that meets the high demands of academic discourse in English academic writing. Qualitative research methods will be adopted, utilising written feedback from students participating in the academic writing workshops for multilingual postgraduate students. Thematic analysis will be used to analyse emergent themes. Preliminary insights suggest that multilingual postgraduate students face challenges when navigating between creative and innovative thinking in their home languages and expressing their ideas in English only to meet the postgraduate writing expectations and standards. These linguistic tensions affect the academic success of multilingual postgraduate students. The study hopes to contribute to the development of inclusive pedagogical interventions that recognise and leverage postgraduate students' multilingual resources and their use to enhance overall academic writing proficiency in English.
There are mismatches between ontologies of language and languaging, on the one hand, and language policy or language teaching, on the other. South Africa has a proliferation of policies in both the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Higher Education and Training, with limited implementation and desired outcome, in other words, a misalignment of policies with curriculum. In addition, institutions tend to follow a populist and simplistic misdiagnosis of problems, and misconceptualisation of language and multilingualism and therefore perpetuate the mismatches of policies and implementation. Consequently, these policies have failed to achieve equity and social justice in higher education. In our view, this is a context where ideologically, language policy is influenced by a love for both monolingualism and multilingualism by institutions and government. Language sciences, such as sociolinguistics and the entire field of applied linguistics and linguistics were meant to focus on monolingualism. Language dialects and official languages are contested in post-apartheid South Africa against the historical unequal apartheid legacies of universities, which influenced them based on racialised laws and desegregation. The paper is underpinned by three questions:"Whatis a language?" "What ontologies/theories and models of language, languaging, and multilingualism inform multilingual policies in education?" and "How can Southern ontologies of language, languaging, and multilingualism promote equity, justice, change, and transformation?" In answering these questions, we draw on the coloniality and decoloniality of language and communication, and explore what it could mean to decolonise language and communication in a university context, despite the abiding and enduring existence of the project of capitalist neoliberal principles and policies governing higher education. For instance, the intersection of translanguaging, neoliberalism, and decolonisation seen in the historically diverse institutions of higher learning in South Africa militates against social justice and equity. Therefore, this paper argues for ontological models of language, languaging, and multilingualism for justice, transformation, and equity.
Polokwane Royal Hotel, Polokwane, South Africa 08-11 July 2025 The 26th International Conference of the African Language Association of Southern Africa (ALASA) was held at Polokwane Royal Hotel, Polokwane, from Tuesday, 08 July to Friday, 11 July 2025. The theme, African Languages Beyond Expansion and Preservation in the Digital Age, highlighted the urgent need to advance African languages from mere preservation and expansion to active scholarship in academic spaces. It provided delegates the opportunity to demonstrate the maturity of African languages for such endeavours from the perspectives of literature, translation terminology and lexicography, language policy and planning, language in society, language and decolonisation, language and technology, and theoretical linguistics. The conference engaged with issues around language policy; languages of learning, teaching, and science; Indigenous African languages online; and localised digital content. There were 211 paper presentations and five keynote addresses. The conference sub-themes were: • The literature and literary scholarship of African languages. • The language of languages in translation, terminology, and lexicography. • The implications of language planning in African languages development and strengthening. • Societal forces in communities and elitist structures of education in the utility of African languages. • The development and strengthening of African languages in the digital space. • Structural systems of African languages.
There are several global, regional, and local policies on the promotion of inclusive and equitable education in Africa. However, African universities in general and South African universities in particular, are at a crossroads 30 years into democracy due to the dominance of English as the language of research, teaching, and learning in higher education. English is used as the dominant language of science, research, epistemological pedagogy, and embodiment of knowledge. In this study, I examine how colonial legacies and the global knowledge economy have contributed to marginalising Indigenous languages in South African universities, thereby constraining multilingual higher education. South African universities' over reliance on English has hierarchised languages in ways that relegate Indigenous languages to the periphery. South African higher education is at a crossroads because on one hand, the global knowledge economy characterises universities as marketplaces whereas on the other hand, student movements demand transformation and decolonisation. In this paper, I employ a critical discourse analysis (CDA)-social justice frameworks to review the vision and mission statements and institutional language policies of a South African historically Black university, historically White university, and a university of technology. The CDA-social justice frameworks approach unmasks the deeply institutionalised global market competitive posture of universities, and unravels the social injustices. A key finding is that the imperialist global knowledge economy is a barrier to multilingual higher education.
