Issues and themes in the contemporary social sciences are explored in a collection of papers by South African scholars. Thirty-five papers are organized by 10 themes. The first theme, metatheory in the social sciences, includes: "Beyond Relativism in the Natural and Social Sciences" (M. Hesse); and "A Critique of Bhaskar's…

The article examines assumptions circulating in development or interventionist discourse concerning the vulnerabilities of AIDS orphans in South Africa. Ongoing ethnographic research, begun in March 2003, with 31 rural children and youth between the ages of 14 and 22, in Magangangozi, KwaZulu-Natal, points to the ways in which global terms may…

Memory-work is a feminist research methodology that is used by research collectives to study socialization within the dominant values that make up a particular culture. The power of memory-work lies with its potential to interrupt hegemonic ways of seeing and knowing the world. Consequently, it can open up possibilities for individual and social…

Investigates students' conceptions on reliability and the ways of dealing with different sets of experimental data. Tests students' understanding of how to handle experimental data from three aspects; doing replicates, handling data, and judging the quality of data with respect to spread. Includes 12 references. (YDS)

The hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and subsequent oral history projects elevated testimony as part of the South African transformation process. In this article, the author argues that testimony as oral history is important as a public forum for people who have been historically invisible. In addition, he contends that…

Innovative teaching methods such as collaborative learning, teamwork, and mind maps were introduced to teach computer science and statistics courses at a South African university. Soft systems methodology was adapted and used to manage the research process of evaluating the effectiveness of the teaching methods. This research method provided proof…

In this article, the author argues for a central and critical role for "reflexivity in research" with the aim of developing and strengthening not only everyone's understanding of what everyone does in environmental education research, but also how, and why everyone does it. In a narrative account of methodological issues that occurred…

Papers from a conference on cartography in geolinguistics include: "The Political Importance of Visualisation of Language Contact" (Yvo J. D. Peeters); "Some Considerations on People and Boundaries" (Guy Heraud); "Geolinguistic Developments and Cartographic Problems" (Colin H. Williams, John E. Ambrose); "A…

Illustrates the use of meta-interviews, a research strategy for enhancing the credibility of claims made from analyses of interview data, drawing on experiences with meta-interviews in two studies conducted in South Africa and Canada. The paper concludes that meta-interviews can enhance the persuasiveness of research documents, bringing…

Six hundred and six essays written during 1969 and 1970 are compared in terms of the main themes or events described; the pupils individually chose to write on either the topic of What happened on Saturday night' or My Street.' (JM)

Literacy data were collected on a 5 percent sample of the Republic of South Africa's 1980 population census. Approximately 5 million persons aged 20 or older were found to be illiterate. The racial breakdown of the literacy rate among the different population groups was as follows: Asians, 79.84 percent; whites, 97.18 percent; racially mixed…

Provides examples from six studies to illustrate how the formative research element of the Sesame Workshop production model has been used to create effective educational media in the United States, South Africa, Egypt, and China. Shows how lessons learned from formative studies provide insights into the development of new research methodologies…

Describes a study that used quantitative data from a mailed survey and qualitative data produced from focused interviews to explore what effects an academic boycott had on faculty members at South African universities. Differences in the effects of the boycott in science and technology, humanities, and social science are examined. (Contains 15…

The field work for this study was conducted in South Africa in 1987-1989, before the end of apartheid, but much of the critical reflection and engagement postdates the empirical research. The project examined the role of the facilitator in the process of educational change. The research involved 34 teachers from primary schools. Chapter one…

Considers how case study approaches can be used cross-nationally. Outlines five stages of conducting and learning from case studies: (1) selection; (2) verification; (3) cumulation; (4) generalization; and (5) application. Illustrates each phase using research on primary school teachers in Russia and South Africa. (CMK)