While higher education internationalization efforts have traditionally been associated with the expansion of study abroad experiences, the recruitment of international students and scholars, as well as the growth of area studies and language programs, the past decade has seen an increase in a variety of multi-disciplinary approaches to…

This paper explores how teachers in a poor township primary school in South Africa construct meaning regarding gender violence among children, and how they talk about addressing that violence. The paper argues that major influences on the endemic violence include complex societal structures that are inscribed with cultures of violent…

1994 is an important year in South African history. It brought about significant socio-political changes in an attempt to undo the unjust practices perpetuated during the apartheid regime. The apartheid government had severely impacted all spheres and institutions of society, including education. In this interview, Vivek Vellanki asks Doctor Yusuf…

South Africa has risen to the forefront of educational debates that claim schooling can promote social justice and social cohesion. By drawing on Freire's (1970) theory of critical pedagogy, this paper examines how South African teachers in rural and township schools encourage students to reflect critically upon their own lives and take action to…

South African higher education relies primarily on English as the medium of education. This is a result of the colonial history of the country, yet it disadvantages a large section of South African students who undertake their education in a language that is not their first language. It also reproduces the monolingual norm and anglonormativity.…

In 2014, through the University of the Free State's (UFS) Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ), three South African universities partnered to collaborate on the pilot phase of a research project focused on understanding whether the Arts could enable social cohesion, as the 2012 National Development Plan (2030) had promoted. All…

Transformation involves rethinking values and ways of seeing and acting, particularly as time stress compounds legacies of oppression and systematic underdevelopment in many postcolonial countries. These are exacerbated by structural challenges, as many societies are undergoing national, democratic, urban, race, class and gender revolutions…

The principle of dialogue is the innovative teaching and learning practices with a transformative agenda. This paper argues that through dialogue lecturers can stimulate students to think and argue for themselves, rather than defer to tradition and authority. However, the context that is conducive for dialogic education, especially in a country…

Inclusive education has become a practice that has been adopted by many schools across the globe and most usually in first-world countries. As a whole-school system, it occurs less frequently in developing countries including South Africa which unlike many developing countries has a sound infrastructure and many excellent schools in both the state…

This article examines the potential and limitations of Megan Boler's "pedagogy of discomfort" in a post-apartheid yet heavily racialised South Africa. Taking an 'ethnographic sensibility' to anthropological teaching, this paper sketches the social and historical context of discomfort produced by everyday classroom practices at a…

This article develops a methodological approach based on the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre to address relationships between space, place, and social justice in education. In understanding the contradictory effects of globalization on local education policies and the continuing effects of historical geographies in education, Lefebvre's theory…

Social justice, defined as an impetus towards a socially just educational world, is based on the assumption that all people, irrespective of belief or societal position, are entitled to be treated according to the values of human rights, human dignity and equality. Diverging from the classical positivist approach in social science research that…

It has become public knowledge that teachers have gradually been called to teach learners to world-class standards in order to enable them to participate actively in the global economy. This has fuelled a debate on how teachers should be prepared to fulfil this new role. In-service programmes on social justice and education have often been…

Investment in early childhood development (ECD) has the prospect of cultivating potential within individuals and can assist in bridging the social equity gap from a very young age. Over the past decade Grade R has been the strongest policy lever used by the Department of Basic Education to improve early learning. The National Development Plan…

This paper provides an account of student teachers' responses to a simulation game about food scarcity and how the game served as a conversation starter regarding the influence of food scarcity on educational provisioning. The simulation game was utilised as part of a suite of activities during an educational excursion for first years in primary…