This research study explored how teachers differ in their views of cultural and linguistic diversity and the role of language learning in diverse classrooms. Beliefs about cultural diversity impact the strategies used to tackle language learning and how teachers from specific language-teaching classrooms understand language as a tool for…

South Africa requires an educated population to sustain her economic development. Higher education institutions are under pressure to produce graduates with skills and competencies to fulfil such an aspiration. Distance education is an essential avenue through which more South Africans can have the much-needed education without necessarily…

This study explored what challenges teachers experienced when integrating indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), which are culture specific, into practical work in natural sciences classrooms with diverse learners. Using an exploratory qualitative case study based on an interpretive paradigm, three natural sciences teachers and two subject advisors…

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt by both male and female students in Open and Distance e-Learning (ODeL) and contact-based learning institutions in South Africa. However, young female students have been the most affected group. Societal norms that reinforce cultural practices which favour male students hinder the academic…

Many countries have successfully used mutual educational and cultural exchange programmes to promote unity. South Africa has adopted similar approach as a social vehicle for influencing mutual appreciation. This study has documented students perception on the role of Buddy programme towards unity at the University of Venda using a survey design.…

The South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996, articulates the establishment of School Governing Bodies, which authorises stakeholders such as parents, educators and learners to participate actively in decision-making processes pertaining to school governance. The Act further stipulates that learners, through the Representative Council of Learners,…

This paper explores the profound connection between race, gender, and culture in post-apartheid education at a public Afrikaans dual-language school in South Africa. Illustrating how the residues and remnants of apartheid legacies propagate arcane constructions of whiteness through interwoven racial and gendered stereotypes, this research maps the…

This paper discusses the pedagogical responses of the Wits University Cultural Policy and Management Department to the needs of our students in the postcolonial context of South Africa. It reviews the challenges experienced by our postgraduate students and the resultant innovations in both curriculum design and learning and teaching practice.…

Many studies have reported on the perceptions of medical students toward dissection. It is important to understand the feelings and symptoms experienced during dissection so that they can be adequately handled. Prior to dissection, first year students are given lectures on aspects of dissection, death and dying, and death rituals in various…

School-based sexuality education remains a key response to the HIV epidemic. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study, this study explores how young people engage with sexuality and HIV- and AIDS-related education as it is delivered through the Life Orientation (LO) learning area in South Africa, in order to understand the dynamics that…

Open Distance Learning (ODL) takes place within different environments that are influenced by the social, cultural and political fields in which a student lives. This is particularly significant in South Africa where distance learning has been identified as the main system that should provide access to higher education for most students in the…

This study seeks to understand the reasons that allow a parent, a principal and a teacher to maintain silence when young girls under their care are sexually abused. Put another way, it attempts to explain what it is about sexual abuse that makes these parties relinquish their role as protectors of innocent children. This paper, based on a larger…

The purpose of this investigation was to examine, from a cross-cultural perspective, students' epistemological patterns of reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI), and to identify potential interactions of cultural and scientific identity. Mediating factors associated with students' argumentation and discourse about SSI, as well as the…

The care and use of animals in education and medical research are very controversial and emotional public issues. Society needs to discuss these issues to reach an ethical stand. A sample of 118 sciences student teachers from a South African university responded to a questionnaire on animal rights and using animals for food, clothes, sport,…

This volume contains a collection of selected papers submitted to the 19th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) held in June 2021. The 19th BCES Conference theme is "New Challenges to Education: Lessons from around the World." The book includes 40 papers written by 66 authors from 15…