This paper reports on a research project investigating the role of universities in South Africa in contributing to poverty reduction through the quality of their professional education programmes. The focus here is on theorising and the early operationalisation of multi-layered, multi-dimensional transformation based on ideas from Amartya Sen's…

This article posits an intervention in the education system which integrates the theories of justice as fairness and deliberative democracy. The aim is to honour every child's right to learn in freedom, and to ensure that every child becomes a responsible and democratic South African citizen. The education system and the schools in that system…

Cognitive capitalism--sometimes referred to as "third capitalism," after mercantilism and industrial capitalism--is an increasingly significant theory, given its focus on the socio-economic changes caused by Internet and Web 2.0 technologies that have transformed the mode of production and the nature of labor. The theory of cognitive…

Choosing any one alternative out of the three educational models provided by Joel Spring (2007/this issue) may not really be adequate for a new social-sociolinguistic theory for a potentially just world order. In this article, the author contends that as an alternative to the persistently degenerating consumerist model of the education security…

Increasingly there is interest in development studies and specifically in the field of education in taking up Amartya Sen's capability approach as a framework for theorizing, implementing and evaluating education policy as a matter of social justice. This paper sets out to contribute to the emerging debate and to show how the capability approach…

This article develops an imbalance theory to explain physical violence against women in intimate relationships in South Africa. The theory proposes four typologies: dependence, compensation, submission, and transgression, through which imbalances in resource contribution and power distribution between spouses are hypothesized to contribute to…

This response to McKenzie suggests that the issues of representivity, legitimacy and politics, inscribed within an institutional continuism characteristic of modernity within the McKenzie discourse, could well be recast within a reflexive view informed by insights derived with developing social theory. It briefly overviews the struggle for human…

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…

In this response I argue that the notion of quality is embedded in the tension between powerful patterns of inherited epistemic and symbolic understanding and the dynamic of the creative, imaginative moments of understanding and design. This would take the idea of co-producer/creator of knowledge beyond the boundaries of (re)packaging commodities…

The concept of anomie is one of the classics of sociological theory. Developed by scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, the concept refers to the absence of clear social norms and values and to a lack of sense of social regulation. However, whereas Merton focused on features of relative deprivation that cause anomie, Durkheim was…

Describes the application of positive youth development principles to challenges faced by adolescent females in South Africa. A mainline, Euro-centric theory, Erikson's life stages (1963), is compared with the Circle of Courage model based on Native American Tribal wisdom. The differences and correlation in these approaches are explored through…

This book is the result of a seminar on emancipatory education and the action research projects in the Department of Didactics at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The book starts with questions regarding the nature of action research. This first chapter discusses the meaning of some crucial organizing concepts, asks questions…

This study provides a framework for studying socio-cultural issues that impact on how knowledge, ideas and values are transmitted and developed. Since racial domination in South Africa was produced through power relations, it is important to investigate discourses through which black South African distance education learners make meaning of their…

The ineffectiveness of community-based interventions can often be traced to problems that occur during implementation. In this study, we outline the implementation of a human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevention program in an educational setting in South Africa. An action research approach was used in the…

This paper explores both the personal narratives of a group of black and white undergraduate students and the institutional discourse at one historically white and Afrikaans medium university now undergoing its own transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. It considers how students talk about their actual experiences and the micro-realties of…