This paper focuses on the potential, challenges, and limits of participatory, narrative and multimodal research methods as contributions to decolonising research on understanding student experiences of teaching and learning in higher education. Drawing on Fraser's social justice concepts of participatory parity, redistribution, recognition, and…

While higher education is crucial for the development of ideals and skills necessary for democratic societies to take root and prosper, higher education institutions' missions have been tested during this time of uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the instabilities and disparities in global higher education by exacerbating profound…

The purpose of the study was to explore rural university access programme students' experience of mathematics anxiety in academic settings. Mathematics anxiety has been found to have an adverse effect on students' confidence, motivation and achievement. The quantitative study was exploratory and descriptive in nature. The participants were 655…

Early literacy teaching and learning in the foundation phase of rural schools in South Africa experience persistent challenges. In order to address some of these challenges, a national reading programme to improve literacy among rural learners was initiated by a nongovernmental organisation. The article provides an overview of how teachers in…

Little is known about mentoring student cohorts from largely urban backgrounds doing practicum at one school, living alongside the community, and sharing residential facilities with teacher educators in a rural context. This article reports Bachelor of Education students' and mentors' school-based mentoring experiences during a 4-week residential…

Low educational attainment, often a lack of a high school diploma or matriculation degree, has been linked to negative health outcomes and lower quality of life for sexual and gender minorities globally. However, optimism and resiliency have been demonstrated to provide buffering effects on school dropout. We conducted a study in a South African…

That rural schools suffer from issues of "hard to staff" and "harder to stay" has been well documented in extant literature. However, the literature seems to indicate inadequate teacher preparation for work in rural schools. Literature also demonstrates that teaching in rural settings ostensibly requires relevant knowledge and,…

The Internet as a networked system has been rendered more complex than ever before as human endpoints are grafted into the system via increasingly pervasive and personalized networked devices. According to the United Nations, the Internet is a transnational enabler of a number of human rights, and as such, access to the Internet has been…

This paper describes the habitus and technological practices of a South African rural student in his first year at university. This student is one of five self-declared rural students, from a group of 23 first-years in four South African universities, whose access to, and use of, technologies in their learning and everyday lives was investigated…

The purpose of the study was to explore rural high school learners' experience of mathematics anxiety in academic settings. Mathematics anxiety has been found to have an adverse effect on confidence, motivation and achievement. This quantitative study is exploratory and descriptive in nature. The participants were 403 learners doing mathematics in…

Rurality is an active agent and central to the lived experiences of children growing up on a farm and attending a farm school. It is a key to their everyday experiences, and influences family life, schooling and their future. Previous studies elsewhere in the world have explored the notion of childhood in rural contexts, but there is a dearth of…

The introduction of outcomes-based education in South Africa placed many challenges on the transformation of science classrooms. The 2009 National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU) Report concluded that South African rural and township schools are largely dysfunctional. This article examined some of the reasons for the…

School governance is a feature of school leadership in schools in South Africa. Currently, there is a dearth of research examining the dynamics in, and how parents navigate their way through, the process of school governance. Using a qualitative approach, we investigated these dynamics. The sample was parents in rural communities in secondary…

This paper reports on the re-design of the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programme, which is offered by the University of Pretoria through distance education (DE) to teachers in rural South Africa. In 2007, a team re-designed the programme with the goal of promoting access, quality, and student support. The team included an independent…