No abstract

This article reviews some key literature of Phenomenography and Variation Theory of Learning as an outline of a pedagogical framework for transforming higher education. Transformation implies change in ways that can deliver on the promise of social justice or what we call socially just pedagogies. It implies that one must understand what needs to transform and how transformation can be made possible in higher education. This process requires an understanding of how the object of transformation appears to people before and after change; what individuals, communities and societies need to learn to act as agents of transformation in and across societies. It is this specific question of 'what is to be learnt?' that is the key focus of the proposed framework in relation to specific groups of people, educational contexts, and educational purposes, rather than generic processes of teaching, learning, teacher education or generic skills, such as thinking skills, teacher competencies, teaching styles and methods.

Learners who experience learning challenges are at risk of not accessing equitable education opportunities in South African schools. This is despite teacher education and system reform initiatives towards more inclusive education. To discover what constrains inclusive teaching, we conducted a qualitative study at four schools in a South African city. At each research site teachers and principals were interviewed and we found teacher, school and system factors implicated in the non-implementation of inclusive teaching practices. In discussing these factors through a Cultural Historical Activity Theory lens, we identify four objects of school activity which are not aligned to inclusive education. These are a competitive ethos, rigid curriculum compliance, bell-curve thinking, and survival in the face of resource limitations. We argue that inclusive teaching will be constrained where it is not aligned with schools' objects-of-activity. To conclude, we suggest strategies that might help to transform objects-of-activity to promote equity and inclusion.

The present paper reports on early career academics' (ECAs) experiences of support for teaching in a research-intensive university in Africa. Through conducting a questionnaire and follow up in-depth interviews greater insight into how ECAs perceive and experience support for developing their teaching practice, is gained. Our analysis suggests that most academics interviewed began their first teaching position with no preparation for all that teaching involves. Many struggled to balance the demands associated with teaching and research, in addition to familiarizing oneself with institutional teaching norms and cultures. Almost all found support from within their discipline, although such support was incidental and spontaneous rather than planned. We offer the idea of communities of practice (CoP) as an approach to institutionalize support for ECAs and draw on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) as the theoretical framing for this study and experience from a South African institution.

This theoretical and conceptual article explores the planned post-school sectoral reform in South Africa. The reform proposals set out in the White Paper (DoHET 2013) privilege a skills-based transformation agenda which we argue is inadequate to service the needs of a diverse postschooling sector in South Africa. In addition to a skills-driven discourse that is underpinning thinking about transforming the post-school sector, transformation as a construct has also not been fully engaged with in education policy. We thus also argue in this article that the good intentions that underpin the transformative process do not, on their own drive meaningful change in the sector. As a contribution to the development of a theoretically nuanced framing of transformation and as a prelude to articulating and implementing policy, the article proposes a force field of change defined by four pillars of transformation, which include the need to explore the impetus for change; capitalising on and developing the levers of change; reflecting on theoretical perspectives of educational transformation and understanding the mitigating barriers of transformation. We argue in this article that these aspects have received differentiated but broadly inadequate attention and that this may be partly responsible for the floundering nature of transformation in the post-school sector in South Africa.