Research Outputs (Education)

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Critical discourse analysis as a research tool.
(1997) Janks, Hilary
Reading Womanpower.
(1998) Janks, Hilary
Teaching direct and reported speech from a critical language awareness (CLA) perspective.
(1998) Wilkinson, Lynda; Janks, Hilary
Critical literacy: Beyond reason.
(2002) Janks, Hilary
In this paper, I argue that critical literacy is essentially a rationalist activity that does not sufficiently address the non-rational investments that readers bring with them to texts and tasks. I begin by looking at playful advertising texts that work with humans and the transgressive in order to consider the role of pleasure rather than reason. Then I examine the force of powerful identifications in relation to reason to show that educational inventions cannot ignore them. Finally, I tentatively suggest that we may need to find ways to combine socio-cultural and psycho-analytic theory in order to imagine new directions for pedagogy in the critical literacy classroom.
(Un)reliable assessment : A case study.
(2003-03) Reed, Yvonne; Granville, Stella; Janks, Hilary; Makoe, Pinky; Steyn, Pippa; Van Zyl, Susan; Samuel, Michael
The drive towards quality assurance at South African universities, with 'consistency' of approach being one of its key features, has profound implications for assessment policies and practices in relation to equity. In this article we present a case study discussion of an investigation we undertook, as a department, into certain anomalies which arose in the assessment of a particular group of post-graduate students' research reports. We were puzzled by the variability in the marks awarded by three different markers of the same reports and set out to investigate what factors were producing this 'inter-marker [un]reliability'. Through a content and discourse analysis of the different assessors' written reports, we uncovered the implicit assessment categories and criteria which assessors were working with in their assessments. We discovered shared categories and criteria, as well as differences in how these were weighted. In the interests of equity and increased inter-marker reliability, we have developed a set of banded criteria on generic features of the research report which we intend to develop a set of banded criteria on generic features of the research report which we intend to trial. We also surfaced two unresolved issues: the use of language and the role of the writer's 'voice' in the research report. As a result of this investigation, we argue that the 'consistency' of assessment within and across universities aspired to by quality assurers (such as the HEQC in the South African context) is difficult to achieve and much still depends on professional judgement, intellectual position and personal taste.
The access paradox.
(2004) Janks, Hilary
Because English is a dominant world language, access to English provides students with ‘linguistic capital’. Bourdieu’s theory of the linguistic market (1991) has important consequences for the teaching of a powerful language such as English. English teachers, who take issues of language, power and identity seriously, confront the following irresolvable contradiction. If you provide more people with access to the dominant variety of the dominant language, you contribute to perpetuating and increasing its dominance. If, on the other hand, you deny students access, you perpetuate their marginalisation in a society that continues to recognise this language as a mark of distinction. You also deny them access to the extensive resources available in that language; resources which have developed as a consequence of the language's dominance. This contradiction is what Lodge (1997) calls the ‘access paradox’. This paper explores ways of working inside the contradiction by examining language in education policy in South Africa as well as classroom materials and classroom practices. It shows the importance of counterbalancing access with an understanding of linguistic hegemony, diversity as a productive resource, and the way in which ‘design’ can be enriched by linguistic and cultural hybridity.
Deconstruction and reconstruction: Diversity as a productive resource.
(2005-03) Janks, Hilary
This article uses critical discourse to show that a series of advertisements by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are premised on a discourse of sameness that constructs difference negatively. This article moves from deconstructing these advertisements to possibilities for reconstruction that show difference as a positive and productive resource.
Language and the design of texts.
(2005-12) Janks, Hilary
By demonstrating lexical and grammatical analysis – the rough work that underpins critical discourse analysis – this paper demonstrates the importance of grammatical knowledge for the critical reading of texts. It also provides readers with a grammar rubric for working systematically with the linguistic analysis of texts and argues that Fairclough’s model enables teachers and students to move beyond text analysis to an examination of texts in contexts.
Games go abroad.
(2006) Janks, Hilary
The research that is reported in this paper is part of an on going collaboration between two universities and two schools on two continents. It began in 2001 as a small scale literacy study: Critical literacy, social action and children’s representations of ‘place’. Fun and games is a book produced by Grade 4 children at Phepo school, a poor school in Atteridgeville, an African township outside of Pretoria for students at Ridley Grove, a poor school in Adelaide, South Australia. The challenge for the teacher was to support young children who speak different African languages and who are learning through the medium of Setswana to show and explain their games to children in an English medium school, living in Australia. Multiple forms of semiosis - words, drawings, photographs, models, video - were essential resources for meeting this challenge as was the use of children's multilingual repertoires for the production of an English text. This classroom project on children's games is theorised in relation to the use of out-of-school literacies in education, multilingualism as a pedagogic resource and multimodal literacies. The extent to which this work on games contributes to the overarching critical literacy project is considered with reference to the interlocking dimensions of power, diversity, access and design, enlivened by children's pleasure when the worlds that they enjoy are embraced by their schools.
Reconciliation pedagogy, identity and community funds of knowledge: Border work in South African classrooms.
(2007) Janks, Hilary; Ferreira, Ana
This article is based on a South African research project in which teachers and educational researchers pool their resources to explore ways of teaching reconciliation in desegregated English and Art classrooms ten years after independence. One of significant findings of this research was that positioning students as agentive researchers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission served as a catalyst for their engagement with their histories. There is evidence that for some of the students their investigations of their varied communities’ funds of knowledge had effects on their own identity locations in relation to those of their classmates. Bringing their different knowledges into the classroom created spaces for borderwork (G. Anzaldúa, 1999. Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza) and the remapping of their identities in relation to one another.
The paradox of “African psychology"
(2008-02-21T06:27:36Z) Moll, Ian; ;
Data collection outside and inside the classroom: Personal Meaning Mapping
(2008-02-21T06:27:54Z) Lelliott, Anthony Douglas;
This paper describes how Personal Meaning Maps, a variant of concept maps can be used to gather data from individuals on their thinking around a topic in science education. Using examples from a research study examining student learning when visiting an astronomy science centre, this paper explores the theory behind the practice of PMM, how it is conducted, how it can be analyzed, and its possible uses in research and teaching.
Confronting the ‘pedagogical immunity’ of student teachers.
(2009) Rusznyak, L.
Student teachers enter teacher education programmes with preconceptions about the nature of teaching that have developed in the course of the years they spent in classrooms as learners. The initial phase of teacher education is a complex process in which many student teachers have to unlearn preconceptions they hold about the nature of teaching that would otherwise constrain their development in learning to teach. This is particularly relevant in the South African context, where the education system has recently undergone radical and multi-faceted transformation. Student teachers do not always get the opportunity to observe supervising teachers modelling conceptually deep, enquiry-based teaching during their Teaching Experience (TE) sessions, so it is sometimes difficult for them to acquire a concept of the type of teaching that university tutors expect. This makes learning to teach particularly complex and challenging. This article reflects on the pedagogical development of a student teacher, Amos, over the four-year period of his Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree. It shows how his pedagogical choices were often constrained by the conception he had held that teaching entails ‘providing learners with correct information’. If teacher educators are to enable student teachers to become competent in the practice of organising systematic learning, it is imperative that teacher education programmes explicitly examine, challenge or deepen notions of teaching that student teachers bring with them to their initial teacher education.
Doves, rainbows and an uneasy peace: Student images of reconciliation in a post-conflict society
(2009-06) Ferreira, Ana; Janks, Hilary
In this article we draw on data from a two cycle action research project, in which ways of teaching reconciliation in post-apartheid secondary school classrooms are explored. We undertake a detailed analysis of a selection of artefacts produced by South African students representing their understandings of reconciliation. Initially students’ work conceived of reconciliation either interpersonally or intrapersonal. Subsequently work related to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) resulted in a more socio historical engagement with the idea of reconciliation. An analysis of the visual and verbal messages on postcards designed by students suggests that they experience our ostensibly post conflict society as one of unstable peace. We argue that for a society with a violent past, reconciliation work needs to find ways of confronting the powerful discourses of the past that continue to circulate and to shape our identities and those of our students.
District Nine and constructions of other: Implications for heterogeneous classrooms.
(2011) Janks, Hilary; Adegoke, Roseline
Culturally responsive research and pedagogy are a challenge in classrooms that are increasingly heterogeneous. I start from the premise that culture is dynamic not static, that difference is a resource for new ways of doing, thinking and believing, that identity is hybrid. The challenge for teachers is how to harness the productive potential of diverse classrooms for pedagogy. John Thompson (1990) argues that discourses of “unification” which construct an “us”, and discourses of “fragmentation” which construct a “them”, produce and maintain relations of power. Us/them discourse will be explored in the South African context in relation to both apartheid’s racial othering and post-apartheid’s xenophobic othering. The South African film, District Nine, which can be interpreted as both forms of othering, is presented as a case for considering these ideas.
Learning to Explain: How student teachers organize and present content knowledge in lessons they teach.
(2011) Rusznyak, L.
The ability to organise content knowledge around key concepts is an essential part of what student teachers need to learn in order to teach effectively. This is particularly significant as South Africa's education system emerges from policies which undervalued the role of content knowledge in teaching and teacher education. During sessions of practical teaching, university tutors have opportunities to observe how students understand content knowledge in ways that differ from their university coursework. Students’ understanding of content knowledge manifests in how they select and organise concepts, conduct explanations and respond to learners’ contributions. Lesson observation reports written by university tutors, as they observed student teaching, were scrutinised for comments that prompted student teachers to think about their understanding of content knowledge. A qualitative analysis of these comments shows how opportunities for learning are diminished when student teachers’ grasp of their lesson topic is disjointed, when their understanding of the concepts they teach is merely algorithmic, and when their concept of the ordering principles of the content knowledge is muddled. By considering these aspects of teaching explicitly, university tutors prompt student teachers to consider the epistemological merit of their lessons, thereby contributing to the construction of their pedagogical content knowledge.
Lesson Planning Guidelines: A scaffold for developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
(2011) Rusznyak, L.; Walton, E.
Lesson planning for student teachers is often regarded in technical terms, merely as the means to ensure effective classroom performance. This approach limits the possibilities that the process of lesson planning offers to the development of professional competence among student teachers. In particular, student teachers need to begin to develop their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), the capacity to make pedagogical choices that are logically derived from content and contextual knowledge. This article reports on a Lesson Planning Guideline which is used to scaffold the construction of student teachers’ PCK individually by requiring them to consider the constituent parts of PCK individually and in relation to one another during the planning process. This guideline was developed in response to perceived limitations of existing guidelines used in our institution and found in texts for student teachers. Called a “Rationale for lesson design” the Guideline does not attempt to simplify the planning process, but rather enables students systematically to access the complexities inherent in effective lesson preparation. By requiring students to articulate their content knowledge and narrate their pedagogical reasoning in some detail, the Guideline enables students not only to teach with confidence but also to construct PCK.
The importance of critical literacy
(2012) Janks, Hilary
This paper is divided into three parts. It begins by making an argument for the on going importance of critical literacy at a moment when there are mutterings about its being passé. The second part of the paper formulates the argument with the use of illustrative texts. It concludes with examples of critical literacy activities that I argue, are still necessary in classrooms around the world.
Theory for teacher practice: A typology of application tasks in teacher education.
(2013) Shalem, Y.; Rusznyak, L.
Debates about the relation between educational theory and teaching practice are embodied in assessment tasks that prompt student teachers to relate theoretical concepts and simulated or directly experienced practice-based contexts in relation to one another. To establish clarity on the ways in which theory and practice can be positioned in relation to one another in application tasks, we revisit the debate between Paul Hirst and Wilfred Carr (2005) about the role of theory in and for education. We provide examples of assessment tasks and then present a typology showing how such tasks demarcate conceptual and contextual objects of study in ways that are more or less visible to students. We argue that the more visibly the concepts are demarcated, the greater the possibilities are for student teachers to develop systematized bodies of educational knowledge that are able to provide organizing insights into their developing practice. While we concede that there might be valid pedagogical reasons for doing so, we argue that when conceptual objects are less visible to students, the underlying message that is transmitted to students is that educational theory is not specialized knowledge and is not distinctively different from their common-sense perspectives. This approach is less likely to promote their acquisition of systematized knowledge for and of practice.
Janks, H., & Makalela, L. (2013). Engaging a visionary: Horizons of the (im)possible. Education as Change, 17(2), 219-228.
(2013) Janks, Hilary; Makalela, Leketi
Neville Alexander has had a profound impact on the way we think about language education and language policy in South Africa. His views on the harmonisation of African languages, mother-tongue education, the position of English and the importance of literacy have shaped academic and policy debates since the early 1990s. Visionaries are able to combine insight with foresight and so imagine a different way forward. In this way they change what Roger Simon describes as the ‘horizon of possibility’. This article examines Alexander's positions critically in relation to questions of power, identity, access and social transformation, in order to understand both their take-up and their rejection. Both history and geography – time and space – are central to this discussion of his achievements.

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