Abstracts
Abstract
This paper discusses aspects of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in South African higher education (HE) and locates it within what it calls Southern theories. Three examples of such theories that the paper advances are Southern decolonial theory, decoloniality, and transversality, which it frames from the Global South standpoint. Concerning the first theory, the paper argues that SoTL, both as a notion and as a practice, needs to be problematized, critiqued, and contextualized according to the Global South HE settings in which it is applied. One of its key points in this regard is that SoTL has to question and critique the dominant epistemic practices and scholarly practices underpinning the curricula of Global South higher education institutions (HEIs), and through which students are framed in these HEIs. With reference to both decoloniality and transversality, the paper foregrounds components of SoTL that are aligned to these two approaches in a way that dismantles their hierarchical relations. Most importantly, it contends that transversality is capable of decentering Western truth claims in favor of polycentric epistemologies, frameworks, and methodologies that resonate with and that have applicability to the Global South.
Appendices
Bibliography
- Adegbindin, A. (2015). Critical notes on Hegel’s treatment of Africa. Ogirisi: A New Journal of African Studies, 11, 19-43. https://doi.org/10.4314/og.v11i1.2
- Badat, S. (2016). Deciphering the South African higher education protests of 2015–16. Mellon Foundation. https://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/documents/Saleem%20Badat%20-%20Deciphering%20the%20Meanings%2C%20and%20Explaining%20the%20South%20African%20Higher%20Education%20Student%20Protests.pdf
- Banda, F., & Banda, D. (2017). Demystifying research methods: Everyday experiences as socio-cultural co(n)texts for effective research methods in teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning in Africa. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 1(1), 60-77. http://hdl.handle.net/10566/3902
- Booth, S., & Woollacott, L. (Eds.). (2015). The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education: On its constitution and transformative potential. SUN MeDIA MeTRO.
- Booth, C., & Woollacott, L.C. (2017). On the constitution of SoTL: Its domains and contexts. Higher Education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 75, 537–551. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0156-7
- Booysen, S. (Ed.). (2016). Fees Must Fall: Student revolt, decolonisation and governance in South Africa. Wits University Press.
- Boyer, E.L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
- Bradley, J.P.N. (2018). On philosophical and institutional “blinkers”: SOAS and transversal worldviews. In D.R. Cole & P.N. Bradley (Eds.), Principles of transversality in globalization and education (pp. 67-82). Springer.
- Broodryk, J. (2002). Ubuntu: Life lessons from Africa. Ubuntu School of Philosophy.
- Chaka, C. (2020). Translanguaging, decoloniality, and the global south: An integrative review study. Scrutiny 2, 25(1), 6-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2020.1802617
- Chaka, C. (2021). English language learners, labels, purposes, standard English, whiteness, deficit views, and unproblematic framings: Toward southern decoloniality. Journal of Contemporary Issues, 16(2), 21-37. https://doi.org/10.20355/jcie29465
- Chaka, C., Lephalala, M., & Ngesi, N. (2017). English studies: Decolonisation, deparochialising knowledge and the null curriculum. Perspectives in Education, 35(2), 208-229. https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v35i2.16
- Chikoko, V. (2016). Issues in Africanising Higher Education curricular. In V. Msila & T. Mishack (Eds.), Africanising the Curriculum: Indigenous Perspectives and Theories, (pp. 71-82). SUN PRESS.
- Cole, D.R., & Bradley, P.N. (2018). Principles of transversality in globalization and education. In D.R. Cole & P.N. Bradley (Eds.), Principles of transversality in globalization and education (pp. 1-15). Springer.
- Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Allen & Unwin
- Cook, S.H. (2020). Reflective piece: Emerging response-abilities: A reflection on the 2019 SOTL on the South conference. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 4(1): 69-85. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v4i1.135
- Costandius, E., Blackie, M., Nell, I., Malgas, R., Alexander, N., Setati, E., & McKay, M. (2018). #Feesmustfall and decolonising the curriculum: Stellenbosch University students’ and lecturers’ reactions. South African Journal of Higher Education, 32(2), 65-85. https://doi.org/10.20853/32-2-2435
- de Sousa Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Paradigm Press.
- Eady, M.J., Abrahamson, E., Green, C.A., Arcellana-Panlilio, M., Hatfield, L.J., & Namaste, N. (2021). Repositioning SoTL toward the T-shaped community. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 9(1), 262-278. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.9.1.18
- Evans, S., Harrison, M., & Rousell, D. (2021). Teaching in the afterward: Undoing order-words and affirming transversal alternatives. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 43(5), 785-803. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2021.1996695
- Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). Grove Weidenfeld.
- Ford, D. (2021). The base-superstructure: a model for analysis and action. Liberation School. https://mronline.org/2021/11/29/the-base-superstructure/
- Fraser, N. (2008). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. In K. Olson (Ed.), Adding insult to injury: Nancy Fraser debates her critics (pp. 273-291). Verso.
- Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. Columbia University Press.
- FutureLearn. (n.d.). Coloniality, decoloniality and the legacies of imperialism. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/decolonising-education-from-theory-to-practice/0/steps/190003
- Ganuza, N., & Hedman, C. (2017). Ideology vs. practice: Is there a space for translanguaging in mother tongue instruction? In B-A. Paulsrud, J. Rosén, B. Straszer, & Å. Wedin (Eds.), New perspectives on translanguaging and education (pp. 208-226). Multilingual Matters.
- García, R. (2020). Decoloniality and the humanities: Possibilities and predicaments. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 19(3), 303-317. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192718790045
- Gordon, G. (2012). It is time to strengthen the conceptual focus of SoTL. International Journal for Academic Development, 17(2), 177-180. https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/1360144X.2012.668750
- Gordon, L.R. (2014). Disciplinary decadence and the decolonisation of knowledge. Africa Development, 39(1), 81-92. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ad/article/view/113311/103030
- Greeff, M., Mostert, K., Kahl, C., & Jonke, C. (2021). The #FeesMustFall protests in South Africa: Exploring first-year students’ experiences at a peri-urban university campus. South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(4), 78-103. https://doi.org/10.20853/35-4-4219
- Grosfoguel, R. (2011). Decolonizing post-colonial studies and paradigms of political-economy: Transmodernity, decolonial thinking, and global coloniality. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.5070/T411000004
- Guattari, F. (1984). Molecular revolution: Psychiatry and politics. Penguin.
- Hlengwa, A., & Naidoo, K. (2018). Socially just pedagogies: perspectives from the ‘global south’. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 2(2), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v2i2
- Hoon, C.H., & Looker, P. (2013). On the margins of SoTL discourse: An Asian perspective. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 131-145. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/teachlearninqu.1.1.131
- Huber, M.T., & Morreale, S. P. (2002). Situating the scholarship of teaching and learning: A cross-disciplinary conversation. In M.T. Huber & S.P. Morreale (Eds.), Disciplinary styles in the scholarship of teaching and learning: Exploring common ground (pp. 1-24). Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning and AAHE.
- Hutchings, P., & Shulman, L.S. (1999). The scholarship of teaching and learning: New elaborations, new developments. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 31(5), 10-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091389909604218
- Hutchings, P., Huber, M., & Ciccone, A. (2011). The scholarship of teaching and learning reconsidered. Jossey-Bass.
- Kern, B., Mettetal, G., Dixson, M., & Morgan, R. (2015). The role of SoTL in the academy: Upon the 25th anniversary of Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(3), 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v15i3.13623
- Kong, S.C., Lai, M., & Wong, T. (Eds.). (2017). Emerging practices in scholarship of learning and teaching in a digital era. In Toward a framework of studying scholarship of learning and teaching in higher education in a digital era (pp. 1-16). Springer Nature.
- Kuykendall, R. (1993). Hegel and Africa: An evaluation of the treatment of Africa in The Philosophy of History. Journal of Black Studies, 23(4), 571-581. https://doi.org/10.1177/002193479302300409
- Kwo, O. (2007). SoTL in the commons: Elephant, authenticity and journey. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1(2), Art. 4. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2007.010204
- Lazar, M.M. (2020). “Politics of the South”: Discourses and praxis. Discourse & Society, 31(1), 5-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926519886126
- Lee, A.T.K., & Carol A. Simon, C.A. (2018). Publication incentives based on journal rankings disadvantage local publications. South African Journal of Science, 114(9-19), 1-3. http://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2018/a0289
- Le Grange, L. (2016). Decolonising the university curriculum. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(2), 1-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.20853/30-2-709
- Leibowitz, B. (2010). Towards SoTL as critical engagement: A perspective from the “South.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1-5. Art. 7. http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol4/iss2/7
- Leibowitz, B., & Bozalek, V. (2016). The scholarship of teaching and learning from a social justice perspective. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(2), 109-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1115971
- Leibowitz, B., & Bozalek,V. (2018). Towards a slow scholarship of teaching and learning in the South. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(8), 981-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1452730
- Letseka, M. (2013). Educating for Ubuntu/Botho: Lessons from Basotho Indigenous education. Open Journal of Philosophy, 3(2), 337-344. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2013.32051
- Looker, P. (2018). Contextualising contexts: Scholarship of teaching and learning and cultural difference. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 2(1), 112-128. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v2i1.32
- Major, C.H., & Braxton, J M. (2020). SoTL in perspective: An inventory of the scholarship of teaching literature with recommendations for prospective authors. Journal of the Professoriate, 11(2), 1-30. https://caarpweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SOTL-in-Perspective_Major_Braxton_11_2.pdf
- Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2-3), 240-270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548
- Maldonado-Torres, N. (2018). Outline of ten theses on coloniality and decoloniality. Fondation Frantz Fanon. http://fondation-frantzfanon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/maldonado-torres_outline_of_ten_theses-10.23.16.pdf
- Mbembe, A.J. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513
- Mbiti, J.S. (1970). African religions and philosophy. Doubleday.
- McKinney, K. (2013). Introduction to SoTL in and across the disciplines. In K. McKinney (Ed.), The scholarship of teaching and learning in and across the disciplines (pp. 1-11). Indiana University Press.
- Meyer, J.H.F., Land, R., & Baillie, C.(2010). (Eds.). Threshold concepts and transformational learning. Sense Publishers.
- Mignolo, W.D. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57-96. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-101-1-57
- Mignolo, W. (2007). Introduction: Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking. Cultural Studies, 21(2-3), 155-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162498
- Mignolo, W. (2010). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and thegrammar of de-coloniality. In W. Mignolo & A. Escobar (Eds.), Globalization and the decolonial option (pp. 303–68). Routledge.
- Miller-Young, J., & Yeo, M. (2015). Conceptualizing and communicating SoTL: A framework for the field. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 3(2), 37-53. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.3.2.37
- Ndlangamandla, S.C., & Chaka, C. (2020). The intersection between multilingualism, translanguaging, and decoloniality in the Global South. Scrutiny2, 25(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2020.1832328
- Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2013). Decolonising the university in Africa. The Thinker, 51, 46-51. https://hdl.handle.net/10210/471883
- Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J. (2017). The emergence and trajectories of struggles for an “African university”: The case of unfinished business of African epistemic decolonisation. Kronos, 43, 51-77. https:// doi.org/10.17159/2309-9585/2017/v43a4
- Ngoepe, L.J. (2020). Debilitating colonialism through ethnographic user-oriented evaluation of a collaborative science ICL course. South African Journal of Higher Education, 34(4), 230-250. https://doi.org/10.20853/34-4-3549
- Omanga, D. (2020). Decolonization, decoloniality, and the future of African studies: A conversation with Dr. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni. Social Science Research Council. https://items.ssrc.org/from-our-programs/decolonization-decoloniality-and-the-future-of-african-studies-a-conversation-with-dr-sabelo-ndlovu-gatsheni/
- Pennycook, A., & Makoni, S. (2020). Innovations and challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. Routledge.
- Pitso, T. (2013). Status of the scholarship of teaching and learning in South African universities. South Africa Journal of Higher Education, 27(1), 196-208. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC142788
- Postma, D. (2016). The ethics of becoming in a pedagogy for social justice: A posthumainist perspective. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(31), 310-328. https://doi.org/10.20853/30-3-651
- Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(2-3), 168-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353
- Ramose, M. (2020). On finding the cinerarium for uncremated Ubuntu: On the street wisdom of philosophy. In B. de Sousa Santos & M.P. Meneses (Eds.), Knowledges born in the struggle, constructing the epistemologies of the Global South (pp. 58-77). Routledge.
- Reano, D., Masta, S., & Habor, J. (2019). Changing future faculty’s conceptions of SoTL. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13(2), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130203
- Resende, V.d.M. (2021). Decolonizing critical discourse studies: For a Latin American perspective. Critical Discourse Studies, 18(1), 26-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2018.1490654
- Ricaurte, P. (2019). Data epistemologies, the coloniality of power, and resistance. Television & New Media, 20(4), 350-365. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640
- Samson, A. (2019). The dialectical circumplex model: A theory of dialectic and its implications for education [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Kansas. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232011295.pdf
- Samuel, M.A. (2017). Developing a syntax for SOTL. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South in the South, 1(1), 19-38. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v1i1.11
- Schubring, G. (2021). On processes of coloniality and decoloniality of knowledge: Notions for analysing the international history of mathematics teaching. ZDM – Mathematics Education, 53, 1455-1469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01261-2
- Sheridan, N. (2019). The scholarship of learning and teaching: A victim of its nomenclature? Society for Reaearch Into Higher Education Blog. https://srheblog.com/2019/03/25/the-scholarship-of-learning-and-teaching-a-victim-of-its-nomenclature/
- Slaughter, Y., & Cross, R. (2021). Challenging the monolingual mindset: Understanding plurilingual pedagogies in English as an Additional Language (EAL) classrooms. Language Teaching Research, 25(1), 39-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820938819
- Soudien, C. (2014). The influence of rankings and incentive systems on academic publishing in South African universities. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(33), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v22n33.2014
- Takaki, N.H. (2020). Exercising southern and decolonial (self)critique in translanguaging: For a juntos stance. Revista X, 15(1), 32-54. https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/article/download/70754/40691
- Takyi-Amoako, E.J., & Assie-Lumumba, N.T. (2018). Introduction. In E.J. Takyi-Amoako & N.T. Assie-Lumumba (Eds.), Re-visioning education in Africa: Ubuntu-inspired education for humanity (pp. 1-18). Palgrave Macmillan.
- Tibebu, T. (2011). Hegel and the Third World: The making of Eurocentrism in world history. Syracuse University Press.
- Tembo, J. (2022). Do African postcolonial theories need an epistemic decolonial turn? Postcolonial Studies, 25(1), 35-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2022.2030582
- Veronelli, G.A. (2015). The coloniality of language: Race, expressivity, power, and the darker side of modernity. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s & Gender Studies, 13, 108-134. http://sites.cortland.edu/wagadu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/07/5-FIVE-Veronelli.pdf
- Vorster, J. (2020). SoTL: A mechanism for understanding and finding solutions to teaching and learning challenges. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 4(2), 6-21. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v4i2.149
- Waghid, Y. (2018). On the educational potential of Ubuntu. In E.J. Takyi-Amoako & N.T. Assie-Lumumba (Eds.), Re-visioning education in Africa: Ubuntu-inspired education for humanity (pp. 55-66). Palgrave Macmillan
- Waghid, Y. (2021). Decolonising the African university again. South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(6), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.20853/35-6-4875
- Walsh, C. E., & Mignolo, W. D. (2018). Decoloniality as/in practice. In W.D. Mignolo & C.E. Walsh (Eds.), On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis (pp. 15-102). Duke University Press.
- Watson, J. (2018). The transversal campus: Open black box? In D.R. Cole & P.N. Bradley (Eds.), Principles of transversality in globalization and education (pp. 19-28). Springer.