Special Editions of Educational Journals Launched

UKZN’s School of Education academics and
students who contributed to two special editions
of educational research journals in 2014.

UKZN’s School of Education recently celebrated two special issues of educational research journals that were guest edited by academics, Dr Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Dr Claudia Mitchell and Dr Daisy Pillay.   

Also featured in the journals are School of Education doctoral students who have contributed to these special issues: Ms Tamar Meskin, Ms Tanya van der Walt, Ms Sizakele Makhanya, Ms Wendy Rawlinson and Mr Sagie Naicker.

Lead Editor, Pithouse-Morgan said: ‘The special issue of the journal Perspectives in Education (volume 32, no. 2), titled: Self-study of Educational Practice: Re-imagining our Pedagogies, offers a collection of articles by self-study researchers who are located across diverse disciplines in Higher Education institutions in South Africa, Canada and the USA.’

The collection begins with contributions from teacher educators (Ms Sandra Weber, Ms Linda van Laren and Ms Lesley Wood), moves on to work done in the domains of Drama (Ms Tamar Meskin and Ms Tanya van der Walt) and Graphic Design (Ms Lee Scott) and, finally, to trans-disciplinary self-study (Ms Corrine Knowles, Ms Thenjiwe Meyiwa et al. and Ms Anastasia Samaras et al.). Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue highlight self-study as a fruitful area for both research and institutional transformation.

According to Pithouse-Morgan, the special issue of Educational Research for Social Change (ERSC) (volume 3, no. 2), foregrounds the relational dimensions and complexities of research reflexivity through articles that offer critical perspectives on enacting reflexivity in educational research across academic disciplines and institutional contexts in South Africa and internationally.

Meskin, Singh, and van der Walt discuss the development of the reciprocal self-interview (RSI) as a reflexive interrogatory method. Ms Theresa Chisanga, Rawlinson, Sibongile Madi, and Nkosinathi Sotshangane explore how reflexivity can be enacted through collective processes of creating, performing, and writing about found poetry.

Ms Shawn Bullock brings together ideas from teacher education and theatre literature to re-examine a video recording of his own teaching with the lens of a viewer as well as researcher and teacher educator. Responding to a scarcity of studies that explore reflexivity in educational leadership, Naicker demonstrates his use of digital memory boxes to generate personal history data about his leadership practice.

Ms Katherine McLay refocuses her gaze on herself as researcher in the context of a qualitative investigation into the use of iPads as a tool for secondary school student learning. Finally, Mr Jack Whitehead takes the reader into the reflexivity of not only looking back over his own work with living theory, but also the work of other scholars, including several South African researchers who have applied a model of living theory.