OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Hoadley, Ursula Kate"

Browsing by Author "Hoadley, Ursula Kate"

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Open Access
An analysis of the constitution of a school subject through recontextualizing : the case of the NAC drama syllabus (1994)
(1997) Hoadley, Ursula Kate; Ensor, Paula; Jacklin Heather
This study sets out to develop a framework for the analysis of a school subject and uses as a focal study the NAC drama syllabus developed in1994. Drawing in the main on Basil Bernstein's theory of curriculum, an analysis is made of how a syllabus is constituted through recontextualizing, using the theoretical concepts of voice and identity, classification and framing, and hierarchy. The discourses that have been recontextualized in the formation of the syllabus are identified. Two sets of discourses are identified: educational policy discourses (namely the discourses of progressivism, utilitarianism and reconstruction and development) and educational drama discourses. The specialization of voice in the syllabus marks out the academic identity, and is an indicator of educational drama discourses evident in the syllabus. The specialization of identity marks out projected social identities, indicating the recruitment of educational policy discourses in the constitution of the syllabus. The field in which the syllabus is constructed is also examined, which following Bernstein is defined as the recontextualizing field. The syllabus writers, located in this field, act selectively on the educational policy and educational drama discourses in constituting the syllabus. The rules for selection in the development of the syllabus are examined, and these are related to the syllabus writers' situation within the recontextualizing field. It is argued that the syllabus writers are positioned subordinately within the field, and that this factor to a large extent regulates the operation of educational policy discourses as rules for selection in the drawing up of the syllabus .
Open Access
A comparative study of progression in the topic matter and materials across the NCS, the NCS work schedule and the CAPS
(2012) Aploon-Zokufa, Kaylianne; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
The following research report is based on a project that compares progression in the topic of Matter and Materials in the Natural Sciences Grade R-9 content framework as it is represented in the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), the NCS Work schedule and the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). The research done for the purposes of this project utilises five concepts derived from current literature on sequence and progression in curricula as well as vertical and horizontal knowledge structures. These concepts are: Depth, Curriculum Focus, Curriculum Ordering, Classification (the nature of the boundary between science and other subjects), Classification (the nature of the boundary between science knowledge and everyday knowledge) and Breadth.
Open Access
Constituting grammar and its pedagogy : the reform of the South African English Home Language intermediate phase curriculum between 1997 and 2012
(2014) Moore, Colleen Patricia; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
Post-apartheid curriculum reform in South Africa has impacted the constitution and organisation of English language knowledge, including grammatical knowledge and its pedagogy. Additionally, changes in theoretical viewpoints on grammar instruction and early literacy instruction have influenced the conceptualisation and teaching of English grammar. This study aims to determine how grammar and its pedagogy have been constituted and explicated in the South African Intermediate Phase (IP) English Home Language (HL) curricula through curriculum reforms after 1997. It also seeks to explore how the constitution of grammar within Curriculum 2005 (C2005), the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS), and the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) have been influenced by changing grammar and early literacy instruction theories and language teaching methodologies. The study analyses and compares the organisation and structure of grammatical knowledge and its suggested pedagogy in the three curriculum documents using Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing. Grammar instruction theories and conceptualisations of grammar types as prescriptive, descriptive and rhetorical (drawn from a variety of grammar instruction commentators including Lefstein, Thornbury and Hudson & Walmsley) are identified in teacher guides and other supporting literature accompanying the three curricula. These documents are also analysed to identify the predominant early literacy instruction theories - skills/phonics-based, whole language, and balanced language approaches – underpinning curriculum development. The analysis shows that through the curriculum reforms, grammatical knowledge has been more strongly classified and framed resulting in a more explicit constitution of grammar as a skill to be acquired by learners for the development of an English meta-language. The CAPS English HL IP syllabus has returned to a contents- or knowledge-based curriculum. This clearer constitution of grammatical knowledge mirrors the re-emergence of explicit grammar instruction internationally, most notably in the UK. The analysis also shows that indistinct progression requirements, pertaining to the acquisition of specific grammatical knowledge, with an arbitrary basis between grades are a consistent concern in all three curricula. It also finds that conceptual ambiguity, regarding early literacy instruction approaches in curricula and accompanying guides, present since the inception of the RNCS and continuing in the CAPS, makes the task of curriculum interpretation difficult. The study concludes with some possible implications the areas of concern may have for teacher training and suggestions on grammatical knowledge organisation for clearer curriculum interpretation and implementation.
Open Access
Differing social positions and the realisation of evaluative criteria for transactional writing in the senior grades
(2012) Kruger, Jared James; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
This study looked at the requirements - evaluative criteria - for transactional writing as they are specified for the Grade 11 level in current curriculum policy. Finding that the requirements are poorly specified, or weakly framed, the study addressed the question of what criteria teachers draw on in assessing transactional writing if not criteria offered by the curriculum.
Open Access
Language and the opportunity to learn science in bilingual classrooms in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
(2016) Probyn, Margaret Joan; Muller, Johan; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
The problem that prompted this research was the general poor performance of South African learners in national and international science assessments, and in particular, the poor achievement levels of Grade 8 learners in successive TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) science assessments. It was suggested in the TIMSS South Africa reports that the language of the tests, when different to learners' home language, contributed to their poor performance in the assessments. However the reports also noted that language factors were intertwined with other factors such as low socio-economic status. Large-scale quantitative studies such as TIMSS can tell us the 'what' in an education system; however such studies are not able to tell us much about 'why': for example why South African learners have continued to perform so poorly in assessments such as TIMSS. The notion of 'opportunity to learn' proposes that learners cannot be held accountable for their performance in such assessments if they have not been provided with the opportunity to learn the content assessed. This small-scale qualitative research study therefore set out to drill down from the TIMSS studies to investigate the opportunity to learn science in classrooms in the Eastern Cape where the home language of learners and teachers (isiXhosa) was different to the language of assessment (English). Opportunity to learn science was conceptualized in terms of the science content of lesson and the language used to construct that science knowledge. Classroom language was further disaggregated into the classroom discourse interaction patterns; and the bilingual languaging practices of teachers and learners. The research thus drew on literature and research from the fields of science teaching, classroom discourse, and bilingual education - fields not usually combined - to develop a complex picture of classroom practices. A multiple case study was undertaken in eight township and rural schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, one of the most under-developed and poorest of the nine provinces. Data was collected from five consecutive Grade 8 science lessons that were observed and videotaped for each of eight classes; the teachers were interviewed about their personal histories, attitudes towards teaching and learning science in the context where learners were learning through an additional language; and their classroom practices. In addition, detailed fieldnotes were kept. Transcripts were made of the lessons and interviews; and the isiXhosa in the lessons was translated where it occurred. The lesson transcripts were analysed using socio-cultural discourse analysis and this included coding and content analysis to arrive at patterns in the data, which were exemplified by extracts from the data; some of these were of necessity fairly long, so as to take account of both the content and language of the lessons and to trace how ideas were developed over time, within and across lessons, though language. The teacher interviews provided the contextual detail; and teachers' practices were probed using simulated recall based on video clips from their lessons. The fine-grained analysis of the science content of lessons allowed for the elaboration of a hierarchy of necessary conditions that needed to be in place for the opportunity to learn science to be actualized; and a key condition was that the science content should be conceptually coherent, with facts linked to generalized principles and conceptual frameworks and that the generalized principles were supported by factual detail. It appeared that the classroom discourse was important for engaging learners in this process of moving from description of observations, to explanation, to generalizing and concept building. In addition a skilled teacher was able to effect a bridging discourse that supported learners in moving from everyday language and understandings to scientific language and understandings; from practical to theoretical knowledge; and from oral to written modes. These are necessary conditions for all learners to be afforded the opportunity to learn science. A further condition in the bilingual contexts that these classrooms typified, was the need for the teacher to support learners in developing conceptual understanding in their home language and then teaching for transfer of that understanding into the language of assessment, English. The analysis was able to demonstrate how the nuanced interplay of content and language in the practice of one teacher appeared to successfully construct the opportunity to learn science; and how in the practices of the other teachers, the opportunity to learn science broke down at different points. This indicated the points of leverage in the enacted curriculum that could be addressed in teacher education to break the logjam of factors contributing to underperformance in science achievement.
Open Access
Pedagogical interactions and opportunities for literacy engagement in two South African Grade R classes
(2014) Lubowski, Nadia; Hoadley, Ursula Kate; Ensor, Paula
This study, embedded in a sociology of education framework, uses Bernstein’s concept of framing to compare and contrast two Grade R classes in the Western Cape, South Africa. It seeks to answer the following question: What are the differences, if any, between pedagogic practices in two Grade R classes, particularly in the transmission of literacy. One Grade R class is attached to an early childhood development centre, the other to a formal primary school. Using a qualitative approach to investigate the transmission process between teacher and learners, it combines a deductive approach, derived from the work of Dickenson and Smith’s studies on interactions during storybook reading, and an inductive approach, which develops categories for analysis from the data. First looking broadly at all tasks related to literacy development, the study narrows its focus to engagement with narrative tasks in order to make visible the nature of the transmission of literacy, particularly the degree of control that was applied by the teachers in both settings. It found that, despite their difference in location and formality, both classes offer remarkably similar pedagogic relationships within which learners receive minimal exposure to text, where the organisation of the tasks is communalised and the task requirements are restricted in nature. It concludes that the teachers in both settings exercise a strong degree of control (framing) over the learning process, resulting in limited opportunities for literacy engagement on the part of the learners.
Open Access
The relation between pedagogic text and pedagogic practice: a study of two grade seven science classes
(2011) Cawood, Anthony Robin; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
Underlying the research is a concern regarding the implications of the nature of pedagogic text for the specialization of student consciousness. The thesis uses a theoretical approach that is grounded on Bernstein’s notions of classification, specialization and knowledge structures. The analysis of the pedagogic texts reveals two contrasting textual modalities: independent and dependent texts. Two differing pedagogic practices emerge: localized and generalized practices. The key differences between these modalities are the strength of the classification of teacher voice and text voice and everyday and scientific knowledge exhibited in pedagogic practice. It is suggested that strong classification of teacher voice and text voice facilitates an orientation to meaning that privileges the authority of written texts over spoken context embedded discourse.
Open Access
Sexual tension : the imagined learner projected through the recontextualising of sexual knowledge into pedagogic communication in two curricula in South Africa and Ontario, Canada
(2014) Thompson, Andrea; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
This study conducts a textual analysis of the structure and discourses present in two sets of sex education curriculum documents - one from South Africa and one from Ontario, Canada. It did so to make visible the imagined learner projected by these curricula in the recontextualising of sexual knowledge into pedagogic communication. Using a deductive framework built on Basil Bernstein’s concepts of classification, framing, vertical and horizontal discourse and instructional and regulative discourse to recognise the structure, and an inductive coding process complemented by Louisa Allen’s discourse of erotics to recognise the discourses and strategic silences present and absent, it concludes that the imagined learner would have a sex negative, context independent orientation to meaning, be heterosexual and not yet be sexually active. The study problematises this learner, presenting statistical evidence that the vertical discourse of the school is significantly disconnected from the horizontal discourse of the everyday. The research raises questions about the role of recontextualising in reproducing a sex negative hegemonic discourse of adolescent sexuality and, through a unique coding scheme, provides a framework for recognising the relative implicitness and explicitness of regulative discourses and their respective relations to power and control over sexual knowledge.
Open Access
Social class, pedagogy and the specialization of voice in four South African primary schools
(2005) Hoadley, Ursula Kate; Ensor, Paula; Muller, Johan
This thesis is concerned with the question of how social class differences are reproduced through pedagogy, and the role of the teacher in this process. The study is located in four primary schools in Cape Town, South Africa, school sites that, in terms of social class composition, were selected to show the reproduction of difference in very stark ways. Four teachers in two schools in an upper middle-class school context, and four teachers in two schools in a lower working-class school context constitute the sample. The ﬁrst part of the study question is concerned with how pedagogy in the different social class schooling contexts differs. The analysis examines how pedagogy in different classrooms is structured differently, and what strategies teachers deploy in the distribution of knowledge in classrooms. Through this analysis two pedagogic modalities are deﬁned - a vertical modality in the middle class schooling context, and a horizontal modality in the working class schooling context. In the consideration of the reproduction of social class differences, orientation to meaning is taken to be the crucial background variable associated with social class which makes a difference to children's schooling experience. Orientation to meaning refers to the transmission and acquisition of more context-independent meanings (elaborated codes) and more context-dependent meanings (restricted codes). The pedagogic modalities identiﬁed in the analysis of the transmission practices in the various classrooms have implications for the way in which students' voice is specialized, or the extent to which students' educational identity and speciﬁc skills are clearly marked and bounded. The theoretical resources for the analysis of pedagogic modalities are drawn from Bernstein (1975; 1990; 1996), especially the concepts of classiﬁcation and framing, specialization of voice and orientations to meaning; and from Dowling (1998), and his conceptualizing of domains of knowledge and strategies for the distribution of different messages in relation to these domains. In order to assess whether social class differences are in fact being reproduced through the observed modalities, tasks were conducted with students. These tasks considered the pedagogy as either an interrupter or ampliﬁer of the community code that all learners enter the classroom with, or as an ampliﬁer of an elaborated code, which middle class children are more likely to bring with them to the school from the home. In the working class schooling context, in particular, the study shows how the pedagogy fails to act as an 'interrupter' of the community code that students bring into the classroom from the home. That is, student's voice in the working class context is found to be weakly specialized with respect to the school code, or an elaborated orientation to meaning. In the ﬁrst part of the study, then, a relationship between social class, pedagogic modalities and the specialization of voice is established. The second part of the study is exploratory. It addresses the question of why social class differences are reproduced through pedagogy by focusing on the central role of teacher in the reproduction of social class differences through pedagogy. In this part of the analysis a particular explanation as to why different pedagogic forms are found in the different social class schooling contexts is explored. A tentative relation between the teachers own social class backgrounds (which varies between the different social class schooling contexts), their strategic dispositions and forms of solidarity in the schools is suggested, which may offer some insight into how the different pedagogic modalities come to predominate in certain schools and have particular outcomes for the specialization of student voice in those schools. The contribution of the thesis is two-fold. It offers a methodology for examining how it is that social class differences are reproduced through classroom processes, and it presents an analysis of pedagogic forms that could be said to represent a breakdown in pedagogy. Secondly, the thesis points forward to further research that places the teacher as a sub-relay in the reproductive processes of schooling at the centre of the analysis, and takes seriously the social class positioning of teachers, students and their schools.
Open Access
The social organization of knowledge in eleven South African primary schools
(2016) Wilburn, Shelly Anna; Hoadley, Ursula Kate; Muller, Johan
This dissertation is motivated by systemic disparities in student academic achievement and teacher knowledge along lines of socio-economic status. From an investigation of eleven differentially performing primary schools located in contexts of poverty, the study shows how knowledge is 'unlocked' or maximized through forms of instructional communication between teachers and with school managers. Knowledge is foregrounded as a critical resource to teachers and as the means by which the purpose of the school is achieved. To investigate how knowledge circulates, the study recruits conceptual resources from Bernstein (1971; 1975; 2000), Douglas (1996), Durkheim (1933), and Weber (1947) and draws empirical tools from the fields of school organization, leadership and management, and teacher professional community. Two key dimensions frame the study of the school in which meanings, and potentially knowledge, are circulated and shaped. These are the specialization of communication, which organizes, classifies, and differentiates 'what' forms of knowledge circulate, and the form of teachers' relations, which structures communication and controls 'how' knowledge circulates. These two axes of variation - the 'what' and 'how' of communication - are used to describe and classify the instructional order of each school. From qualitative analyses of interview data obtained from grade 3 teachers, Heads of Department, and principals at each school over three years, significant differences emerge along lines of academic performance. Between teachers, a professional mode of instructional order is found to facilitate the circulation of knowledge in schools performing better than expected, where relations are open, differences in expertise are recognized, and teachers share and/or develop pedagogic strategies. Between teachers and school managers, the circulation of knowledge is made possible through either the professional or the bureaucratic mode based upon formal status and expertise, also associated with relatively better academic outcomes. Where communication is weakly specialized through routinized processes based upon status only, findings suggest the circulation of knowledge is impeded by the displacement of expertise, which manifests in schools performing lower than expected. Findings imply that the tipping point in the achievement of higher academic outcomes lies in the establishment of an instructional order that maintains organizational stability based upon status and that develops pedagogic strategies through expertise. The study shows how communication, as a central organizational process, serves as a medium for control and a potential agent of educational change.
Open Access
The specialisation of historical knowledge in one content area in four Grade 7 Social Sciences textbooks under CAPS
(2015) Job, Mikhaila; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
This dissertation considers how historical knowledge is specialised in one chapter in four Grade 7 Social Science textbooks produced under the CAPS curriculum. The four textbooks selected are from two publishers, and the interest was in similarities and differences within and between publishers. Two central categories of analysis were used: the General Structure of the Text, and the Structure of Historical Knowledge. The General Structure of the Text considered the overall organisational differences and similarities between the textbooks in terms ofBemstein's (1977/2000) concepts of classification, selection and sequencing. All four textbooks were found to be highly similar, suggesting strong external framing (Fᵄ⁺)of the textbooks by the curriculum. I examined the weighting of the sections and sub-sections of the textbooks, and found similarity across all four textbooks for the sections but variation for the sub-sections. The Structure of Historical Knowledge considered the specialisation of historical knowledge. I separated the text from the textbooks into Narratives and Activities. Narratives were comprised of Narrative Text and Glossaries, while Activities were composed of Sources and Questions. The analysis of Structure of Historical Knowledge was informed primarily by Seixas' (2006) benchmarks of historical thinking. I found differences related to historical specialisation, specifically with regards to the historical concepts that students are exposed to in the Narrative Text and Activities, and the Conceptual Level which underpins the Activities. The study found that students are exposed to a limited range of historical concepts, especially in certain of the textbooks in the Narrative Text; and students are required to engage with Questions in a way which focuses on comprehension and little inference in the Conceptual Level. There was, however, some variation across textbooks and this is drawn out in the analysis.
Open Access
The trajectory of the shifts in academic and civic identity in South African and English secondary school History National Curriculums across two key reform moments
(2017) Kukard, Kirstin Jane; Hoadley, Ursula Kate; Angier, Kate
This thesis seeks to explore the trajectories of the kinds of academic and civic identities that four different history curriculums would seek to produce. The curriculum documents chosen are two South African (Curriculum 2005 [1997] and the Curriculum and Policy Statement [2011]) and two English (the first national curriculum [1991] and the most recent [2014] Secondary history national curriculum). These curriculums have been chosen in part because of the historical connections the two countries share, as well as the relationships that exist between the history educationalists in the two contexts. The theoretical underpinning for the discussion of identity are Bernstein's concepts of instructional and regulative discourse. In addition to examining the shifts in imagined identity, the other question which the thesis seeks to answer is that of the underlying purpose of school history. Three ideal types were therefore developed in relation to the three dominant ways of viewing the purpose of history education that emerges in history education literature. The academic and civic identities were analysed through the construction of an analytic framework developed through an iterative process of engaging with the data and history education literature. A framework was also developed to consider the degree to which the four curriculum documents conform to the three ideal types. The shifts in overall purpose and identity within the two contexts are striking. The first English national curriculum saw a tension between a focus on developing history students who had a strong sense of national identity and using constructivist models that teach the students the knowledge base of the subject. Curriculum 2005 instead focused on attempting to create students who were actively engaged with the problems of their current day situation. By the second English national curriculum, this focus on making connections to current day challenges had been introduced in addition to continuing concerns about national identity and understanding the way in which historians work. The Curriculum and Policy Statement reform in South Africa brought greater concerns for developing historical thinking, but nevertheless retained a focus on actively engaged citizenship.
Open Access
Waiting to learn : an analysis of instruction in four preschool settings in poor contexts
(2016) Jowell, Justin; Hoadley, Ursula Kate
Worldwide there has been a growing recognition of the important role that preschool education can play in supporting later school (and life) success. At the school level, studies that examine and broaden knowledge of educational transmission in the classroom (pedagogic discourse) have been useful in providing pointers towards better practices to support children's learning at school. Extending the study of pedagogy to the preschool level seems to hold great potential for better understanding how to support children's learning. This study, based within a sociology of education framework, poses the question: How is pedagogy constituted and how does it vary across four different preschools situated in working class areas? Using a case study approach, four sites were chosen from the same setting, and classroom observation data collected. The study examines in these sites how time is distributed across the school day in relation to different domains of early learning; how pedagogy is structured (and how it varies); and how what is offered at the four settings compares to an optimal1 pedagogy identified for school, and preschool, in the research literature. Drawing on Basil Bernstein's conceptual frame for the analysis of pedagogy, a coding tool was adapted from Hoadley (2005) for the preschool setting which enabled a robust description and comparison of the pedagogy at the four sites.

Browsing by Author "Hoadley, Ursula Kate"

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