This article is based on research into the phenomenon referred to as the "colonization of the mind." It commences with a discussion of four different backgrounds and concomitant experiences regarding this persistent form of colonization: two with reference to the authors of this article, and two with reference to distinguishable…

The centring of Muslim women in Islam resides in an intertwining historico-politico-theological narrative of gender reform, first promulgated in a seventh century revelation of the Qur'an. Significantly, the gains derived by the women of Islam's first community, have become lost in the dominance of contemporary androcentric-patriarchal…

Christian religious belief systems may influence higher education teaching and learning. We investigated how this manifests in relation to critical citizenship education at the Department of Visual Arts of Stellenbosch University. During the facilitation of a Visual Communication Design course, which included community interaction (CI), students…

Higher education institutions play an active role in addressing and responding to twenty-first century societal trends. The two main factors, which have transformed the way we live and work are globalization and technological advancements. Consequently, global competence became imperative in twenty-first century. As evident from scholarly…

Given its propensity to foster social awareness, literature can function as a tool for developing critical citizenship, particularly in schools. This article critically analyzes John Kani's "Nothing but the Truth", a text prescribed in South African high schools, in terms of whether it presents any issues that could be drawn upon to…

This article seeks to address what it means to be an 'engaged' university and, in so doing, to contribute to current discourses -- in a fast growing field -- about how to collaborate with communities for meaningful social transformation. As a group of researchers from the faculty of education in a South African university, we share our thinking…

Education commonly is positioned as central to developing citizens who can address so-called global challenges. Responses are identifiable in global citizenship education, which may recruit mathematics into interdisciplinary relationships, and within mathematics education itself. However, if notions of the global and local, the citizen,…

This article is a response to a qualitative study that examined how the indigenous African notion of "ubuntu" informs how some school teachers in a Black township in South Africa conceptualize Western-oriented narratives of democracy. While the study acknowledges important differences in how ubuntu is understood and defined, the author…

Background: Social transformation in South Africa is a sensitive issue because of the historical realities of segregation and past injustices. Aim: To address transformation, Visual Communication Design students were asked to design an exhibition, event, sculpture or garden to memorialise the forced removals that took place on the site of the…

In the history of South African education there have been three contrasting attempts to incorporate learners into the authority structures of schools, namely: "boy-government" (prefect system), "student-government" (Student Representative Councils (SRCs)) and "learner-government" (Representative Councils of Learners…

The transition from apartheid to democracy necessitated radical transformation within the South African political, socio-economic and education landscape. Black and coloured students were only fit for unskilled or semi-skilled occupations resulting in under-qualified and poorly trained professionals. Since the inception of democracy, there was a…

This timely book features rich examples of students and teachers, defined as learning partners, disrupting hierarchy in education by collaborating on social change projects. At the book's core is Paulo Freire's theorization of students and teachers working together toward co-liberation. Co-written by learning partners, each chapter in this…

Using the theoretical framework of pedagogy of compassion and single embedded case study methodology, this article explores how a teacher negotiates the contours of migration and social transformation to promote education for global citizenship. The research site was a former white school in South Africa. The research sample was a female Indian…

In view of the serious moral decay in South African society, this article reports on our research regarding the role of the school in the inculcation of citizenship values (as part of the brief of South African education). We regard a set of citizenship values consonant with a democratic dispensation to be a core component of a moral order…

The notion of essentialised racial difference was a keystone of apartheid education which served to cement white supremacy in South Africa. More recently there is a need for socially-just education that requires a robust analytical orientation in interrogating power, privilege and difference. Therefore this article engages the following questions:…