Sense of belonging plays an essential role in the retention and success of distance learning students. This study investigated the influence of a sense of belonging on the intentions to drop out among black and white distance learning students at a university in South Africa. A total of 831 participants were surveyed and constituted the sample of…

Background: Colour-blind attitudes deny racial dynamics and can lead to resistance to transformation because there seems to be no need for it. This study investigated these attitudes amongst students at a university campus engaged with implementing its transformation agenda. Aim: Using a survey, the research determined the prevalence of…

Background: For many years, the lived experiences, knowledge systems and histories of previously colonised people have been misinterpreted, removed and devalued in university teaching. The present curricula of African universities are predominantly Eurocentric and Criminology is no exception. In the wake of the #RhodesMustFall student protest…

Loneliness is a common concern among university students, as these individuals experience many of the risk factors associated with loneliness. This experience of loneliness tends to lead to numerous consequences such as negative self-evaluations, anxiety, and depression, which in turn lead to impaired concentration and a decline in academic…

The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), one of the highly researched career theories, suggested that outcomes expectance and self-efficacy are crucial factors in the career selection process. The result of career outcomes expectancy (COE) and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDSE) may be pivotal in an individual's shunning or being more…

In an era when education researchers and policymakers alike are paying increasing attention to the cultivation of global mindedness among teacher candidates, the current push for accelerated teacher preparation programs, combined with increasingly stringent state assessment requirements, has had the unfortunate effect of steering the focus away…

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…

South Africa's first national democratic elections in 1994 marked a turning point in the history of the country. Since democracy much of the focus of African National Congress (ANC)-led government has been on redress and transformation across all spheres of society, including higher education. This paper examines one important aspect inherent in…

Using a culturally relevant conceptual framework, we examined student outcomes from engagement in student activism for students (N = 1,238) at a South African university. Findings show participation in student activism differed by students of different genders, population groups, and academic disciplines. Students involved in activism reported…

In this paper, an attempt was made to locate the role of internationalisation in African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It is argued that comprehensive international, intercultural, and global dimensions in the affairs of African tertiary institutions provide for a more nuanced and diversified higher education landscape. Through a desk…

This paper reports on the process of understanding myself and my pre-service teacher education students better through my lecture reflections and deliberations with critical friends as I taught a South African film entitled Tsotsi. Conversations with colleagues deepened my analysis as I was challenged to revisit my musings on lecture reflections,…

Students bring their own unique stories, shaped by history, culture and language, to the higher education context. Developing a sense of place-belonging on a diverse university campus is intrinsically intertwined with the intersectionality between race, ethnicity, gender and language. This study uses narrative inquiry to understand one student's…

While acknowledging higher education's complicity in inequality, the premise of this paper is that curriculum transformation can be one means of challenging and dismantling structural injustices towards the goal of equity of access and outcomes. Fraser's multi-dimensional framework for social justice is drawn upon to explore what this…

The use of social media platforms to facilitate teaching and learning requires resources (hardware and Internet access) to enable active student participation. Limited access to these resources may impair students' learning and, should the students consequently fail to graduate, tacitly contribute to their social exclusion. The results of a survey…

Every sector in the twenty-first century makes use of technology for its activities, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and higher education institutions are not exceptional. However, the cohorts enrolled in the selected higher education institution are from technologically challenged backgrounds. This suggests that in their previous…