3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Legal professional identity formation and the representation of legal professionals in classroom talk.(2012-09-20) Humby, Tracy-LynnThe focus of this study is the formation of legal professional identity and the manner and extent to which representations of legal professionals in classroom talk could feature in and be studied as part of this process. Eclipsed for many years by the need to teach students to ‘think like lawyers’, professional identify formation is increasingly acknowledged as a legitimate concern of legal educationalists. This entails expanding the sphere of legal education beyond the cognitive aspects of the discipline of law to encompass inculcation of the purposes and values of the profession but also, more broadly, an appreciation of the forms of power legal professionals exercise, the forms of work they undertake, the relationships they establish and maintain, and the social profile of the profession they advocate for or accept. The study assumes an understanding of legal professional identity formation as a pervasive and implicit process of socialization that occurs irrespective of whether professional identity has been posited as a particular pedagogical object or not. It puts forward the thesis that representations of legal professionals in classroom talk constitute part of the socialization process. It presents a theoretical model for understanding the significance of such representations in processes of identity formation, linking them to an understanding of ‘identity regulation’ that revolves around the concepts ‘role’ and ‘discourse’. It further invokes the resources of critical discourse analysis and, in particular, the work of Van Leeuwen, to develop a set of appropriate analytical codes modeled on key elements of social practice for analyzing representational meanings relating to legal professionals in classroom talk. The development of the codes is undertaken through an iterative process that engages with a complete, verbatim transcription of classroom talk in an introductory six-‐month course on law at a tertiary institution. The study concludes that a discursive, analytical approach to studying representational meanings relating to legal professionals in classroom talk and, in particular, a micro-‐discursive point of entry modeled on key elements of social practice, is useful and appropriate for apprehending the richness of the representational meanings. Such an approach allows for a grounded identification of themes that can then be compared to claims made in the literature on legal professionalism and the teaching of legal ethics. It also concludes that because the representation of legal professionals in classroom talk overlaps with the power relations of the classroom, they should be regarded as a significant source of identity regulation and thus used in a manner that is both reflective and constructive.Item Questioning gender : the representation of race and gender in global and local print media responses of the Caster Semenya saga.(2011-11-10) Bhula, VidhyaExamining the print media representations of South African runner, Caster Semenya, is the focal point of this study. Both local and international print media are considered. The dissertation sets out to draw parallels between the representation of Semenya and early 19th century representations of Sarah Baartman. Links between the race of these two women and their “othering” on the basis of their gender are drawn. The study explores the medical and scientific justifications for “othering” these two women, the lack of agency that is attributed to both Semenya and Baartmann, and also discusses the use of humour as a tool of negotiating their “otherness”.Item Citizenship education in South Africa : a critique of post-apartheid citizenship education policy.(2010-03-04T06:09:45Z) Mathebula, Philemon ThokozaniIt is widely agreed that effective citizenship, whether in well-established democracies or in those in transition to democracy, require some educational preparation. In post-apartheid South Africa, education policy and subsequent curriculum development placed participatory democracy and active citizenship at its centre. Although South African education policy documents have a maximalist tone in places, they collectively reflect a minimalist conception of citizenship and of citizenship education. The focus of my critique of citizenship education policy is the tendency manifest in the state policy documents to undermine democratic participation and active citizenry, conceptions first developed and put into practice in the Greek city-state of Athens. The conception of education for citizenship does not guide the practice in terms accessible to the school’s democratic community. State policy’s concept of students’ democratic participation and representation does not reflect a representative model of democracy in South African schools. Furthermore, extant policy does not envisage democratic citizenship education that is enjoyed by a significant proportion of the South African learners. This minimalist conception of citizenship and of citizenship education is not appropriate for the South African context. This thesis, further, mounts a defence of compulsion, arguing that within the theoretical framework of current theories of the Athenian prototype of democracy, deliberative and representative democracy, compulsory schooling and compulsory citizenship education can be justified on the grounds that they promote individual autonomy and build social cohesion ― towards the common good in South Africa. The recently proposed compulsory citizenship education programmes are not compatible with compulsory citizenship education that is designed to promote active, critical and inquiring South African citizens. These value-based education documents promote obedience, if not unquestioning loyalty, to the South African government. Moreover, neither the Bill of Responsibilities nor the School Pledge offer possible strategies for getting from where we are to where we ought to be. In the final analysis, post-apartheid citizenship education policy’s lack of conceptual clarity, coherence and consistency can be attributed in large part to the conflicting forms and conceptions of citizenship in South Africa. The goals of citizenship education in South Africa would be better served by cosmopolitan ideals, that is, preparing South African learners to act in a local, national and global scale.Item Citizenship Education in Malawi: A critique in defence of maximal citizenship(2006-11-03T08:00:06Z) Divala, Joseph JinjaThis dissertation analyses assumptions about citizenship education in Malawi since the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in 1993 and reveals a minimalist conception of citizenship. It asserts that Malawi’s historical and traditional context require concerted efforts towards participatory citizenship if democracy is to be strengthened and protected. Central to the discussion are conceptual distinctions between minimal and maximal citizenship alongside a discussion of concepts of freedom, human rights and development, which can be attributed to minimal and maximal conceptions of citizenship. The dissertation argues that deliberative and participatory forms of democracy, with their parallel notions of contestatory and republican freedoms and rights, are more attuned to creating an active and strong citizenship while at the same time developing a positive relationship between democratic participation and participation in local and national development, a relationship which representative approaches in Malawi seemingly disavow.