School of Education

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Author: search.filters.author.Dominguez-Whitehead, YasmineStart date: 2010

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Food talk: A window into inequality among university students
    (2014) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Dominguez-Whitehead, Kevin A.
    Although initially related to the country’s colonial and apartheid history, material inequality in South Africa has deepened, with recent research suggesting that South Africa now has the highest levels of inequality in the world. In this paper, we examine the interactional reproduction of inequality by paying particular attention to the discursive and interactional practices employed in students’ talk about food. Specifically, we examine food-related troubles talk and food-related jokes and humor, showing how students who described food-related troubles produced these troubles as shared and systemic, while students who produced food-related jokes displayed that they take for granted the material resources needed to have a range of food consumption choices available to them, while treating food consumption as a matter of individual choice. These orientations were collaboratively produced through a range of interactionally organized practices, including patterns of alignment and dis-alignment, pronoun use, laughter, and aspects of the formulation of utterances. While our analysis primarily focuses on these discursive and interactional practices, we also consider how discursive practices can be linked to the material conditions of participants’ lives outside of the analyzed interactions.
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    Language, identity, and ideology: High-achieving scholarship women
    (Unisa, 2013) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Liccardo, Sabrina; Botsis, Hannah
    This 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.
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    Conceptualising transformation and interrogating elitism: The Bale scholarship programme
    (University of the Free State, 2013) Botsis, Hannah; Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Liccardo, Sabrina
    In this article, we consider the extent to which a scholarship programme at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) engages with the challenges of transformation. This scholarship programme highlights the transformative potential of a programme that focuses on excellence for a previously under-represented group, but also demonstrates how this type of programme reaffirms the dominant notion of excellence within the university space, which could be read as a reproduction of inequitable practices. Theoretically, we make use of Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘field’ and ‘capital’ to understand how a space that is socially elite, such as a university, engages with the issue of change. Transformation efforts such as Bale have meant that previously disadvantaged individuals have opportunities to pursue a university education, these efforts have also served to maintain and perpetuate elitism. This happy “marriage” between elitism and transformation ensures that the university remains elite, while simultaneously pursuing demographic equity and diversity. Bale students who successfully complete a university education reap many benefits, through their access to the cultural capital of a Wits degree. However Bale consists of an exclusive group of students who will personally benefit, while the broad interests of a top-notch University are served.
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    New academics in the South African research-oriented academy: A critical review of challenges and support structures
    (2014) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Moosa, Moeniera
    An explicit drive to increase research production at South African universities is apparent, but this drive also calls for the emergence of researchers who have traditionally been marginalised and underrepresented in the academy. Developing a new generation of productive researchers and intellectuals in South Africa, particularly those who are underrepresented in academia and who come from historically marginalised groups, is not only a pressing national concern, it is also an endeavour that is taken seriously by universities that value research production, transformation, and diversity. This paper is specifically concerned with the challenges faced by new academics who come from historically marginalised groups and groups which are underrepresented in academia, and thus particular attention is paid to black academics, academics from working-class backgrounds, and women in the academy. We specifically focus on concerns surrounding their success in the academy and in research production by addressing the transition from student to academic staff member, and the appropriation of the language of the academy. We argue that fundamental changes are necessary to address the specified challenges, and thus call for adequate support structures that promote intentional socialisation into the academy; supportive networking practices, and non-hierarchical mentoring models.
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    Background knowledge and epistemological access: Challenges facing black women in a SET scholarship programme
    (Unisa, 2015) Liccardo, Sabrina; Botsis, Hannah; Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine
    In 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.
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    Evaluating postgraduate preparation in the South African context
    (Routledge, 2015) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine
    Little work is being undertaken in South Africa to systematically and intentionally prepare undergraduate students to pursue postgraduate studies. This is concerning given the shortage of postgraduate students and the small scale of postgraduate studies. The few programmes and endeavours that exist to prepare students for postgraduate studies are not necessarily evaluated to assess their achievements and shortcomings. This paper provides an evaluation of an academic year-long postgraduate preparation programme, and is specifically concerned with examining subsequent postgraduate enrolment and improvement of participants’ marks. The study draws on both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings indicate that the majority of programme participants proceeded to subsequently enrol in postgraduate studies immediately after completing the programme and that the programme played a role in the pursuit of postgraduate studies. However, the findings also indicate that overall participants’ marks did not improve after participating in the programme. The study brings to light that, while some achievements are possible, the limits of the programme must also be acknowledged.
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    International students in the South African higher education system: A review of pressing challenges
    (Unisa, 2015) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine; Sing, Nevensha
    The internationalisation of the South African higher education (HE) system, has involved (among other developments) the steady increase of international student enrolment, particularly from other African nations. While there has been a considerable increase in the percentage of international students over the past few decades, little is known about the challenges they confront and the ways in which socio-political and economic issues facing South Africa and the HE system may impact them. This article focuses on significant features of the South African HE system and considers some of the theoretical challenges faced by international students within this context. Pressing socio-political and economic issues facing South African HE specifically, and the nation more generally, are highlighted and in turn their relevance for challenges faced by international students relating to xenophobia, discrimination and financial difficulties are addressed.
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    Students’ food acquisition struggles in the context of South Africa: The fundamentals of student development
    (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015-04) Dominguez-Whitehead, Yasmine
    This article situates food at the heart of the fundamentals of student development, based on qualitative case study research. Food acquisition and food-related struggles in the context of the South African university are examined. Three overarching themes emerged from the analysis of the data, and are discussed in detail: depletion of food funds, acquiring food on campus, and awareness of others' food struggles. The findings suggest that students struggling to acquire food are dominated by food acquisition issues and that inaccessibility of food on campus has a potentially detrimental impact on student development and involvement on campus.