In this article I outline two broad sets of changes characterising the South African higher education landscape. The first relates to, among other things, structural changes (such as mergers and incorporations), the reorganisation of teaching programmes (influenced by the mode 2 knowledge), and the introduction of performativity regimes, most…

After decades in the political wilderness, school integration seems poised to make a serious comeback as an education reform strategy. A growing number of parents, university officials, and employers want elementary and secondary schools to better prepare students for the increasingly racially and ethnically diverse society and the global economy.…

At the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA, 30 April to 4 May), the theme of re-imagining public education arose once again with the most compelling presentation from leading scholars in the field concerned with counter-hegemonic politics and democratic change. The session entitled "Re-imaging public…

There is an abundance of literature on citizenship education. This essay is an attempt to show how deliberation is used in university classroom pedagogy, to engender in students a commitment to becoming responsible citizens of a post-apartheid South Africa. Firstly, I show that controversy can be attended to through deliberation, with specific…

Despite efforts to transform the racialised system of higher education in South Africa inherited from apartheid, there has been little research published that interrogates the relationship between race and the experience of academic staff within the South African higher education environment. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and critical…

The homepage of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) features a smiling photo of Abigail Fisher, the young White woman at the center of "Fisher v. the University of Texas," which could end race as a criterion in university admissions. Edward Blum, founder of POFR, a conservative advocacy group, connected Fisher with Wiley Rein LLP,…

The funding of higher education in South Africa has in the recent past been a subject of animated debate. This debate has ranged from the adequacy of government funding of higher education, the suitability of the funding framework, to protestations against frequent tuition fee increases. At present, the debate is mainly about "free"…

As im/migrant researchers of color working and living in the USA, we begin this article by discussing how our own transnational selves and research have created tensions with the normalized use of socially constructed and theorized categories and differences in US qualitative research practices. We theorize an alternative reflexive mode of…

Public engagement is one of the three legs which support and underpin a restructured and transformed post-apartheid higher education system in South Africa (along with teaching and research). This third sector role of higher education is widely implemented in South Africa and is described differently by different institutions and entails a diverse…

The relationship between student engagement and student outcome achievement is well documented in the higher education literature for US students and has recently gained traction for students in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and England. Yet, few studies have examined this relationship in countries with evolving or…

The paper interrogates the issue of language and social justice in South Africa's higher education using quantitative and qualitative data collected at the University of the Free State (UFS). Data were collected using questionnaires. Through purposive sampling based on South African and UFS demographics, 120 questionnaires were administered to UFS…

In a country in which, even after the economic crash, there are plenty of resources to go around, people need to think hard about why inequality persists so much more strongly in Britain than anywhere else in Europe. The cause, the author wants to suggest, is a set of deep-rooted, hidden and unacknowledged beliefs, each unjustified yet passed off…

Under the apartheid state, higher education was structured to maintain and reproduce the subordinate social and economic position of non-Whites. The post-apartheid higher education sector suffered from fragmentation along racial lines, a lack of sustainability, and a structural incapacity to meet the challenges of restructuring and development.…

Since 1994, the South African higher education system, fragmented and divided along racial lines during the years of apartheid, has been subject to a wide range of initiatives directed at bringing about the "transformation" necessary for a more equitable dispensation and, ultimately, a new social order. One of the "levers"…

Apartheid-designed higher education institutions continue to have a major influence on students and higher educators in South Africa. There is a need for innovative approaches for engaging with difference in higher education. One means of doing this could be through innovative pedagogical approaches. The Community, Self and Identity project…