Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Re-imagining secondary education: Voices from South African academic and vocational secondary education programs

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Balwanz_umd_0117E_15899.pdf (4.681Mb)
    No. of downloads: 658

    Date
    2014
    Author
    Balwanz, David
    Advisor
    Klees, Steven
    DRUM DOI
    https://doi.org/10.13016/M2RD0M
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Global discourse on secondary education and vocational skills development offers a narrative which emphasizes increased use of standardized testing; a focus on science, technology, business knowledge, and vocational skills development; and identifies expansion of access to secondary and tertiary education as a solution to poverty, inequality, and unemployment. In South Africa, academic and vocational secondary education is largely shaped by this discourse, which is grounded in the assumptions of human capital theory and privileges the perpetuation of an elite model of secondary education. Apartheid-era practices of racial segregation and racial capitalism, while legally dismantled, still have a significant influence on the political economy of modern day South Africa. This influence includes the distribution of power, resources, and opportunities articulated through South Africa's public education system. This study draws on critical social theory and political economy to understand existing constructions of academic and vocational secondary education in South Africa, including how these constructions dialectically relate education to work and society. The purpose of this study is to allow grassroots voices, teachers and learners at two schools in marginalized communities in South Africa, to "talk back to discourse" about the purpose of secondary education. How do learners and teachers define purpose? Many see secondary school as a place for students to learn about themselves and education as a means to realizing their dreams, even if their dreams are only, as yet, partially formed. This study offers a humanistic counter-narrative to the dominant discourse by sharing the dreams and holistic development interests of learners and the hopes and frustrations of teachers as they learn and work within an inhumane and narrow construction of education, work, and society.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/16420
    Collections
    • Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility