Journal Articles

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Open Access
100 years old and still making history: The centenary of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town
(2004) Phillips, Howard
Observing institutional birthdays is not something academic historians readily undertake nowadays – their training makes them habitually wary of the constructed nature of such events and of the self-preening which usually accompanies them. All too often such occasions become part of a celebration of an invented tradition of origins, in which founders’ days are ‘seized on with alacrity for displays of pageantry, where, with high-ranking officials ever present, the narrative inevitably extol[s] … supposed progress and virtues’.1 However, commemorating a centenary is perhaps in a different category, for doing so has long roots in Western culture, dating back to the Biblical Jubilee, the Roman Catholic Church’s first Holy Year in 1300 and the veneration of the decimal system by the European Enlightenment. This makes marking a centenary seem quite natural, so easing the discomfort of historians with such an occasion. Moreover, when, as in the case of the centenary of the foundation of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) chair of history in 2003, the original event also signalled the inception of history as a university discipline in its own right in subSaharan Africa, the inducement to commemorate this step is difficult to resist. Added to this, 100 years is a meaningful timespan for reflecting on an institution, being long enough for a degree of historical perspective but short enough to permit the voices of some of the actors to be clearly heard too, perhaps once and – thanks to the tape recorder and video camera – forever. In a centenary year, therefore, both a microscope and telescope can be employed to good effect. It was with such ideas in mind that in 2002 UCT’s Department of Historical Studies contemplated its coming centenary and decided not to let it pass unnoticed.
Open Access
A Caledonian college in Cape Town and beyond: An investigation into the foundation(s) of the South African university system
(Stellenbosch University, 2003) Phillips, Howard
Adopting a historical approach, this article traces the origins of key features of the South African university system, namely the general nature of its undergraduate degrees, its heavy reliance on lectures to convey information and its extensive use of examinations to assess levels of student achievement. This historical investigation finds the roots of these features in the unreformed Scottish university system which was enthusiastically embraced by South Africa's first two teaching universities, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Stellenbosch, in 1918, and which then was adopted by those universities which were set up in their image during the next 70 years. The article suggests that any attempt to reform the country's university system today must take account of the historical circumstances which produced it originally.
Open Access
A reconstruction of the Cape (South African) fur seal harvest 1653 - 1899 and the comparison with the 20th-century harvest
(2008) David, Jeremy; Van Sittert, Lance
The Cape fur seal was an abundant resource in southern Africa, when first discovered by itinerant sailing vessels in the late 16th century. Seals were slaughtered indiscriminately by the sailors for skins, meat and oil for three centuries from around 1600 to 1899. Government controls over the sealing industry were first introduced as late as 1893, by which time at least 23 seal colonies had become extinct and the seal population had been significantly reduced. This paper reconstructs the historical seal harvest from the time of arrival of the first settlers in 1652 up to 1899. These data are then compared with modern harvest data from 1900 to 2000, illustrating the marked increase in the harvest from about 1950, and the concomitant recovery of the seal population to a level of around 1.5-2 million animals.
Open Access
A thematic content analysis of psychologists' reports in child custody evaluations
(2004) Brandt, R; Dawes, A; Africa, A; Swartz, L
The key objective of this study was to examine empirically the substantive issues that inform psychologists' decision-making in custody evaluations. The study draws on a relatively small convenience sample of 39 reports from eight different psychologists who represented key informants in the field in Cape Town. Jameson, Ehrenberg and Hunter's (1997) Best Interests of the Child Assessment model was revised and used as a template for a thematic content analysis. The results of the study indicate that psychologists tend to adopt a child-centred approach, with the child's basic and developmentally related needs ranked as the most commonly employed criterion (reflected in 95% of reports). The child's rights and wishes were reflected in 54% of the reports, and socio-economic resources were the lowest-ranked criterion, reflected in only 18% of the reports. The results of the study are discussed in terms of the need to formulate the implications of a child rights orientation, to negotiate referral questions and to adapt report writing styles to the legal-judicial context. Further, the implications of the findings for future research and professional practice are discussed and recommendations made.
Open Access
A tool for modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African war 1900-1902
(2010) Van Heyningen, Elizabeth
While not denying the tragedy of the high mortality of people in the concentration camps in the South African War of 1899–1902, this article suggests that, for Lord Milner and the British Colonial Office, the camps became a means of introducing the rural society of the Boers to the facilities of modern life. To some extent they became, in effect, part of Milner’s project for ‘civilising’ and assimilating the Boers into British colonial society. The high mortality rate was finally contained through the introduction of a modern public health system, including the use of statistics and the employment of qualified doctors and nurses. Young Boer women working in the camp hospitals as nurse aids were trained as ‘probationers’ and classes in infant and child care were offered to the Boer mothers. In addition, the need for adequate water supplies and effective sanitation meant that an infrastructure was established in the camps that familiarised the Boers with modern sanitary routines and left a legacy of more substantial services for the Transvaal and Orange Free State villages.
Open Access
A Tribute to Ray Alexander 1913 - 2004
(2005) Scanlon, Helen
I remember reacting very strongly to the Jewish prayer [which Orthodox Jewish men say] in the morning, “Thank you God for making me a man and not a woman”. I don't know whether I was five years old or six ... but I refused to accept this prayer (Suttner, 1997: 43). By the time of her death on 12 September 2004, Ray Alexander was known around the world as a prominent agitator for political and human rights in apartheid South Africa. Her name had become synonymous with the Food and Canning Workers Union and the Federation of South African Women. In spite of 25 years of exile from South Africa (between 1965 and 1990), Alexander remained a consistent force in radical politics, eventually becoming the longest serving Communist Party functionary in South Africa. There were many facets to Ray's life: the young Zionist, the revolutionary, the trade unionist, the Communist Party activist, and the exile. In all these roles, she displayed a unique and progressive approach to the status of women in South Africa.
Open Access
Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship: a phenomenology of selected academic librarians in Zimbabwe
(2019-05-13) Dabengwa, Israel Mbekezeli; Raju, Jaya; Matingwina, Thomas
This paper explores the shared experiences of practices of blended librarianship among Zimbabwean academic librarians to identify how adequately they comply with their dynamic roles and functions. The paper relies on the theoretical constructs from Bell and Shank's (2004, 2007) blended librarianship and Lave and Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) to understand how Zimbabwean academic librarians practice blended librarianship in the workplace through engagement in legitimate work tasks. The investigators used phenomenology to explore academic librarians' experiences of blended librarianship. They selected a sample of 101 academic librarians and delivered a semi-structured questionnaire to the sample, conducted document research and interviewed key informants from the sample. The researchers collected data from the Bindura University of Science Education, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Lupane State University, Midlands State University, the National University of Science and Technology, and PHSBL80 Library which chose to be undisclosed. Each institution adopted blended librarianship in its way. Four (4) different categories of blended librarianship emerged from the experiences; that is “transcending blended librarians”, “partially blended librarians”, “intermittent blended librarians” and “aspiring blended librarians”, displaying each institution's level of instructional technology and instructional design roles. The study proposes that the “Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship” two-by-two matrix that developed was in this inquiry needs further refinement. Further enquiries may test the matrix within the same sites or other locales altogether to corroborate if the results are replicable.
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Accounting for lack of interracial mixing amongst South African university students
(SAGE, 2007) Finchilescu, Gillian; Tredoux, Colin; Mynhardt, Johan; Pillay, Jace; Muianga, Lucena
The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 1 068 black African and 1 521 white students. Their agreement or disagreement with eight reasons for avoidance of contact was analysed and found to vary as a function of race. The relationship of their responses to levels of prejudice and amount of interracial contact was examined.
Open Access
Achievement goal profiles, trait-anxiety and state-emotion of young female competitive horse riders
(2011) Duff-Riddell, Caroline; Louw, Johann
The goal orientations of female riders (N=83) between the ages of 9 and 20 were investigated with a view to extracting goal profiles from the collected data. Goal orientations were identified by means of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport (AGQ-S), which is based in the 2x2 achievement goal model. Goal profiles were created using cluster analysis. Seven distinct goal profiles emerged from the data. The goal profiles were compared to measures of the rider's trait-anxiety and state-emotion in competitive horse riding. The profile that was high in the approach orientations and low in the avoidant orientations emerged as the most emotionally robust profile. It was also the most competitively successful profile. The profiles where the avoidant orientations were high emerged as the most emotionally vulnerable profiles. Furthermore, they did not demonstrate any particular competitive success.
Open Access
Activity theory as a framework for understanding teachers' perceptions of computer usage at a primary school level in South Africa. South African Journal of Education, 25(4): 258-265
(2005) Hardman, Joanne
Educational underachievement in gateway subjects such as mathematics and science is a continuing challenge in South African schools. In a bid to develop technologically competent mathematicians and scientists while addressing the shortage of teacher capacity in the country, the government has turned to computer technology to support and strengthen teaching and learning in disadvantaged classrooms. The assumption underlying the use of computers in these schools is that computers will enable students to cover the curriculum more efficiently and effectively, leading to improved performance. However, the extent to which a computer can impact positively on students' achievement depends on how a computer is used as a learning/teaching tool. I seek to illustrate the potential use of Activity Theory as a framework for understanding how teachers use technology to mediate the teaching and learning of mathematics in primary schools. To this end, I argue for an understanding of the notion of an 'object' as a methodological concept capable of tracking shifts within and between activity systems. Drawing on interview data collected from four case studies carried out in the Western Cape, South Africa, an account of teachers' perceptions regarding how pedagogy shifts across the different contexts of the traditional lesson and the computer laboratory is developed. I conclude by arguing that the strength of Activity Theory lies in its ability to enable one to understand learning as the complex result of tool-mediated interactions, rather than as something opaque, which happens in a student's mind.
Open Access
Activity theory as a potential framework for technology research in an unequal terrain
(2005) Hardman, J
This article attempts to expand and elaborate Activity Theory as a theory for studying human computer interaction in South Africa. It first sketches ways in which Russian activity theory arising out of the work of Vygotsky may expand understandings of learning before elaborating the theory in terms of Engestrom's contributions. Using case study data collected from a postgraduate course in Education at the University of Cape Town, I investigate how Activity Theory can be used in order to understand the process of transformation occurring when computers are used as teaching/learning tools and how different systems interact with, and transform each other over time. By employing methods such as interviews and observations I develop an account of how pedagogy shifts across the different contexts of lecture hall and computer laboratory, illustrating how a shift in the object of the activity system leads to shifts at all levels of the system. I conclude by arguing that the strength of Activity Theory lies in its ability to enable one to understand learning as the complex result of tool mediated interactions, rather than as something opaque, which happens in a student's mind.
Open Access
Acute psychosocial stress enhances visuospatial in healthy males
(SAGE Publications, 2013) Human, Robyn; Thomas, Kevin G F; Dreyer, Anna; Amod, Alysaa R; Wolf, Pedro S A; Jacobs, W Jake
Previous research demonstrates that stress can disrupt a number of different cognitive systems, including verbal memory, working memory, and decision-making. Few previous studies have investigated relations between stress and visuospatial information processing, however, and none have examined relations among stress, visuospatial memory performance, and planning/ organisation of visuospatial information simultaneously. In total, 38 undergraduate males completed the copy trial of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Those assigned randomly to the Stress group (n = 19) were then exposed to a laboratory-based psychosocial stressor; the others were exposed to an equivalent control condition. All then completed the delayed recall trial of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Physiological and self-report measures of stress indicated that the induction manipulation was effective. Our predictions that control participants, relative to stressor-exposed participants, (a) take less time to complete the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test recall trial, (b) reproduce the figure more accurately on that trial, and (c) show better planning and more gestalt-based organisational strategies in creating that reproduction were disconfirmed. At recall, those with higher circulating cortisol levels (measured post-stress-induction) completed the drawing more accurately than those with lower circulating cortisol levels. Otherwise stated, the present data indicated that exposure to an acute psychosocial stressor enhanced visuospatial memory performance in healthy males. This data pattern is consistent with a previously proposed inverted U-shaped relationship between cortisol and cognition: Under this proposal, moderate levels of the hormone (as induced by the current manipulation) support optimal performance, whereas extremely high and extremely low levels impair performance.
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Adaptation of aphasia tests for neurocognitive screening in South Africa
(2010) Mosdell, Jill; Balchin, Ross Malcolm; Ameen, Ozayr Sale
Two aphasia tests — the Cookie Theft Test and the Boston Naming Test — were adapted to help eliminate western cultural, language and education bias in neurocognitive screening in South Africa. These tests were among the commonly used tests initially chosen for inclusion in a larger neurocognitive screening battery currently being developed and translated for use in South Africa — the Groote Schuur Neurocognitive Battery. The adaptations were made employing quantitative and qualitative converging lines of evidence to evaluate their efficacy. This evidence included consultation with clinicians at Groote Schuur Hospital and translators knowledgeable in Afrikaans and isiXhosa language and culture, qualitative feedback from the research participants, and the results on the tests. The adapted tests were piloted by testing 30 neurocognitively intact controls consisting of equal numbers of Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa speakers, comparing their scores to their performances on the original tests. Three aphasic patients were also briefly tested. Results indicate that the adaptations made to the tests improved the performance of controls over the original versions, and tentatively suggest that the adapted tests should be able to screen for aphasia. This pilot study recommends further changes to the Groote Schuur Naming Test before its introduction into the battery ahead of its validation.
Open Access
Addressing the 'leadership conundrum' through a mixed methods study of school leadership for literacy
(2019) Taylor, Nick; Wills, Gabrielle; Hoadley, Ursula
This paper explores methodological insights from a mixed methods study that aims to understand how school leaders promote literacy development in their schools. The study findings consider both the complementarities and the challenges of the qualitative and quantitative approaches to measuring leadership practices and their linkages with learning across schools. We begin by identifying a conundrum in school leadership and management (SLM) research – strong effects found in qualitative studies and weaker effects in quantitative studies. From the literature we identify some of the central challenges that account for these differences. We then show how these challenges were and were not addressed in the mixed method research we conducted in an SLM study of South African primary schools in challenging contexts. We consider why the central aim of the study – to develop a scalable instrument for measuring SLM – remains elusive.
Open Access
Affirmative action and admissions in higher education
(2010) Soudien, Crain
This set of articles is offered in an attempt to share with a wider reading public the kinds of issues that arose in the course of a review at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that was undertaken into its admissions policies. They encapsulate the major elements on the debate within the review and are presented here in an attempt to open up the discussion of how the higher education community in South Africa might seek to take forward the challenges that relate to the development of equitable admissions policies for the country.
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Affirmative Action in South Africa: From Targets to Empowerment
(South African Association of Public Administration and Management, 2009-04) Milne, Chantal
Representative bureaucracy, together with addressing inequalities, is the foundation of the public service reform of affirmative action policies in South Africa. Currently, affirmative action policies focus on passive representation and targets. However, the discourse on affirmative action appears to be concerned with the language of empowerment and therefore diverges from the original policy language. This article analyses the Personnel and Salary Information System (PERSAL) data from 1995 to 2008 to assess where the public service of South African stands in attaining the targets set in affirmative action policy. The article concludes that the language of representative bureaucracy underpins the policies. However, the spirit of these affirmative action policies, which could in terms of the discourse on affirmative action, can be seen to be the move to empowerment, perhaps through active participation.
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Africa's triple transition: popular perspectives
(Taylor & Francis, 2001) Mattes, Robert; Bratton, Michael
Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed the end of foreign colonial rule, the rise and fall of autocratic political regimes, and the disappearance of statist command economies. The challenges were to turn populations into coherent nations owing allegiance to the state; to democratise the state structures that govern these populations; and to liberalise the rules that regulate economic transactions. An important source to assess these prospects are the views and attitudes of ordinary Africans. This essay reflects on the original data derived from a crossnational research project. Nine African states were surveyed between 1999 and 2000. An attempt is made to gather some propositions from the analysis of the data. Many present serious challenges to common wisdom about African politics. It appears that the process of nationbuilding has created coherent political communities with high levels of national identity; that democratising the state in Africa builds on existing indigenous demands from ordinary Africans; and that economic liberalisation proceeds in the face of a mixed set of values about market and state.
Open Access
Africa, African-Americans, and the avuncular Sam
(2004) Adebajo, Adekeye; The copyright policy of the journal allows sharing of published version after 18 months embargo period according to guidelines on Sherpa-Romeo [31 July 2018].
This essay investigates U.S. policy toward Africa and highlights the role that African Americans have played in influencing this policy. It is inspired by the need for an urgent dialogue between Africans and African Americans on U.S. policy toward the continent. It begins by briefly assessing the ignominious roots of Africa's relationship with America and pan-Africanist efforts to liberate Africa from alien rule. It then analyzes the destructive effects on Africa of U.S. policies during the era of the Cold War. It criticizes the pernicious effects of stereotypical and simplistic coverage of Africa in the American media, and assesses U.S. policy toward Africa under the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It concludes by offering some policy recommendations for a more enlightened U.S. policy toward Africa.
Open Access
Africans' surprising universalism
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) Bratton, Michael; Mattes, Robert
Africa is a latecomer to democratization. In terms of timing, Africa has followed rather than led other continents in giving birth to the reform movements that have installed elected governments, multiparty systems, and more open societies around the world. Since many African countries are dependent on foreign aid, they have also experienced weighty external pressures to liberalize. One should not automatically conclude, however, that the impetus for reform comes from outside the continent rather than from within. If political liberalization were a Northern idea being foisted on an unwilling South, then certain empirical facts should follow. One would expect Africans to 1) be unaware of the concept of democracy; 2) have distinct cultural understandings of its content; 3) be unsupportive of regimes based on competitive principles; 4) prefer alternative political regimes; and 5) be unsatisfied with the performance of democratic regimes in practice.
Open Access
Africa’s Quest for Long-Term Development: Does NEPAD Provide the Necessary Policy Framework?
(Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2008) Akokpari, John
The evasive nature which characterizes Africa’s development is something familiar to all. Various ambitious development strategies, implemented since the 1970s, have brought little hope for the reversal of Africa’s developmental malaise. The formulation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2001 and its adoption by the African Union (AU) as the continent’s blueprint policy document for development engendered a lot of optimism. This optimism resulted partly from the willingness of African governments to voluntarily undertake what the continent’s development partners - the G8 - perceived as ‘credible policies’ for resuscitating the ailing economies of the continent, and partly from the promise of assistance in the form of accruing ADE and IDE, debt forgiveness and access to western markets. There is a growing consensus among development experts that the provision of such opportunities would alleviate many of the structural constraints in Africa, consequently catalyzing long-term development. While NEPAD’s emphasis on promoting peace, security, democracy, and good governance is commendable, it is however argued that its propensity to gear development solely along neo-liberal lines is problematic in a continent that is grappling with the disappointments of the market-based structural adjustment programmes (SAP).