Academic Wits Research Outputs (All submissions)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/36827
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Item Language, identity, and ideology: High-achieving scholarship women(Unisa, 2013) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Liccardo, Sabrina; Botsis, HannahThis article addresses the linguistic identities of high-achieving women who are participants in a prestigious scholarship programme at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). We examined how these high-achieving women negotiate and construct their linguistic identities within the context of the university’s Anglicised institutional culture and against the backdrop of South Africa’s multilingual society. Individual and focus group interviews were examined by employing an experience-centred and culturally orientated approach to narrative (Squire 2008). Our examination revealed that language is both an academic and social intermediary of experience at the university, and that language functions as both an identity marker and an ideology that permeates the university and wider society. How participants transgress and maintain their linguistic identities, as well as how they subvert, and align with, the dominant university ideology is discussed.Item Background knowledge and epistemological access: Challenges facing black women in a SET scholarship programme(Unisa, 2015) Liccardo, Sabrina; Botsis, Hannah; Dominguez-Whitehead, YasmineIn promoting access to higher education in an unequal society there is a concern that universities may operate in a manner that values background knowledge associated with those who have access to a privileged class location. The authors focus on background knowledge, its contribution to epistemological access to higher education and how such background knowledge is likely to affect black women’s academic success. They analyse interviews with 19 black women from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are recipients of a Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) scholarship, utilising Ryle’s (1945) distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that, to understand their challenges in gaining epistemological access to university. Despite the scholarship programme’s comprehensive support, the findings suggest that students who enter with background knowledge acquired at well-resourced high schools are academically advantaged. The authors argue that SET scholarship programmes which recruit low-income students are necessary, but insufficient interventions for enabling epistemological access. Further responsiveness is required on the part of the university.