Browsing by Author "Samson, Sean"

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    Empowering minds, body and soul: An evaluative case-study of the perceptions of the extent of women empowerment within a Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education course at UCT
    (2021) Kibido, Princess Fundiswa; Nomdo, Gideon; Samson, Sean
    The Adult Education sector in South Africa (SA) occupies a crucial space in higher education (HE) in terms of securing access and opportunities for a diverse group of non-traditional students to further their development. Amongst this diversity are highly marginalized subgroupings of adult learners, especially black working-class women. Participation of these women within HE requires serious attention given the low social ranking that this group continues to occupy in all spheres. Evidence drawn from Adult Education research suggests that not enough attention has been given to this group of learners with respect to how they are impacted by issues of geographic, cultural and racial diversity in the Adult Education setting. This study undertaken here reports on transformative dimensions underlining Adult Education pedagogy, with a specific focus on the concept of empowerment and how this is attained by RPL learners. A qualitative case-study methodology using a critical interpretive perspective grounded in phenomenological enquiry, was used to develop contextual understandings of four disadvantaged adult female learners' experiences of their transitions into HE. The focus is on these learners' perceptions of the forms of empowerment they have gained from their participation in a Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course, and the extent to which such empowerment has impacted positive change in their lives, even beyond the course. The argument made in this qualitative study is that the active participation of marginalized black women in Adult Education, does lead to the attainment of multiple levels of self-empowerment. Such empowerment is realized when the objectives of national educational provisions, operationalized through Adult Education legislature, are correctly aligned with the transformative and social justice mission of Adult Education theory and practice. Proper alignment yields desirable outcomes in terms of enabling transformative learning environments that engender experiences of self-empowerment, agency and control. To this effect, an evaluative study was conducted of the Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course offered by the University of Cape Town. The findings in this study demonstrate that factors such as race, geographic setting and cultural location, impact experiences of empowerment amongst adult learners. Furthermore, it is evident that such experiences of empowerment is a multi-layered and dynamic process which occur at cognitive, personal and social levels that can only be realized through praxis. The bringing together of educational policy, theory, and practice in proactive and productive ways in this study, also offers the potential for designing new hybrid frameworks for assessing the extent to which Adult Education provisions successfully achieve their transformative function, beyond the educational setting.
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    Respectability and shame: the depiction of coloured, female murderers in the Daily Voice and Son tabloids - 2008 to 2012
    (2014) Samson, Sean; Haupt, Adam; Bosch, Tanja E
    This work analyses the depiction of coloured women on trial for murder in South Africa’s Western Cape tabloids, the Daily Voice and Son. It argues that these depictions preserve conservative race, class, and gender norms. The coverage of the murder trials of Najwa Petersen, Ellen Pakkies, Zulfa Jacobs, and Chantel Booysen constructs a notion of illegitimate femininity that is rooted in apartheid and colonial discourse on coloured femininity. The ideologies present in this coverage indicate how themes of sexuality; motherhood; victimhood and trauma; class and community; and religion expel the threat female offenders pose to traditional performances of identity. This work is motivated by the shortage of local research on the depiction of female offenders. While international research have developed useful typologies for how female offenders are represented, and have shown how these depictions are sites for the communication of gender expectations, an acknowledgement of the diversity of women’s experiences necessitates a focus on how local discourses of race, class, and gender further influence these representations. Moreover, this work is motivated by the opportunity to offer an indication of how tabloid content works ideologically. By focusing on the depiction of women on trial for murder, this work offers a snapshot of the discourses on race, gender, and class that circulate in the publics created by these titles. The construction of deviant femininity, and its intersection with 'colouredness’ and a working-class identity, is the means through which the status quo is communicated. This work relies on a Foucauldian frame to privilege the power of discourse to construct identity, and the work of Judith Butler to consider how identity is produced and performed under constraint. In line with this focus on language, and due to a specific consideration of the Cape Flats vernacular, this work employs critical discourse analysis to analyse a purposive sample of the coverage of Petersen, Pakkies, Jacobs, and Booysen’s murder trials. Interviews conducted with journalists who have authored these tabloid accounts, and focus groups with tabloid readers who hail from the Cape Flats supplement this analysis. The results of this triangulation indicate the complex interaction between discourses in subduing the threat female offenders pose to normative identities. It also indicates the potential for tabloid newspapers to cement hegemonic and essentialised notions of racialised gender identities, despite South Africa’s post-apartheid context. Tabloids’ recognition of marginalised subjects does not automatically signify democratic transformation, partly because such subjects are represented by corporate monopolies who rely on cultural translators to communicate fixed ways of being. If media are to transform, they need to break from the apartheid era's subjugating and pathologising discourses. This work demonstrates that an interrogation of race, class, and gender politics is crucial for analysing South African tabloids’ contribution to public discourse.
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    Skinner stories : a community's perspective on the representation of coloured people today
    (2007) Samson, Sean
    This work investigates the meanings coloured people derive from media representations of' colouredness'. To position coloured identity in post apartheid South Africa, it pays close attention to the ways apartheid stereotypes play themselves out in particularly television media today. It looks at representations of working class coloured identities and asks for a shift in representations which undervalue that identity. Since this research focuses on both an analysis of television content and reception analysis amongst the women of the Cape Flats community of Hanover Park, a working class coloured community, it cannot be removed from questions about the existence of coloured identitity. It argues that despite the apartheid imposition of the label it exists in as much as there are those who identify with the label, and therefore give it meaning. This meaning is complicated by working class identities. In looking at the meanings these women derive, negotiate and construct from these narratives, it highlights the impact of gender roles and class not only on the act of reception but the creative processes of meaning generation. This work does not limit itself to a television analysis but also looks at print media in the tabloid, the Daily Voice, since it speaks to a specific working class, coloured market, and highlights its representation of coloured identities. Lastly, there has always existed a cultural link between coloured and African American identities. While recent scholars highlight the importance of this link based on identification with black Diasporas occurring within the coloured community, this work argues that this identification could have negative repercussions. It problematizes the representation of African American masculinities, but more importantly, draws similarities between the representations of coloured women in the soap opera narratives and oppressive caricatures of African American women. It shows that these caricatures have been commercialized through the hip hop genre, questioning the potential for similar images of coloured identity to be normalized and therefore problematizes coloured identification with this American product.