This article investigates the awarding of scholarships to students from historically disadvantaged communities to attend elite schools in South Africa. Specifically, the article analyses the narrated accounts of former scholarship recipients who reflect on their experiences of entering an elite secondary school as scholarship students. Using…

This study focuses on the admission criteria of a bachelor of accountancy (BAcc) degree program as one of many factors influencing students' success in graduating in the regulated time frames. The present study used constructivist learning and student engagement theories as connected lenses to explore the effect of admission criteria on…

Privileged benefaction in elite schools and the moral dilemmas, contradictions and power politics involved are the focus of this paper. The notion of "the gift" provides our analytical lens. We concentrate on two girls' schools--one in South Africa and one in England. These were both built, in various ways, on the British model of public…

The contemporary South African subject English classroom is a complex space requiring ongoing attention to issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and frequently manifesting the need to work across historically constructed differences in race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This article reports on one aspect of a broader research…

A South African study explored predictors of success among 18 educationally disadvantaged and 8 advantaged students in a University of Witwatersrand developmental studies program. Results showed academic success was considerably less predictable among disadvantaged students. Universally-used admission criteria were not predictive for either group;…