The Youth Global Awareness Programme (YGAP) is a 2-week residential 'popular education' programme for young, diverse, international, labour movement activists, run by the International Federation of Workers Education Associations in Cape Town, South Africa. In this mixed method study (N = 47), we draw on the Social Identity Approach to Education…

The contexts in which people immerse themselves, as well as the people they interact with, contribute immensely to people's understanding of self. As a person grows, lives and operates in different contexts with different people, he/she develops a self-concept or a particular understanding of oneself. This understanding constitutes an identity…

This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to capture experiences of spiritual identity development in a purposive sample of South African adolescents, using semi-structured interviews and reflective writing exercises. Participants confirmed the prominence of religiosity and spirituality, as intertwined concepts central to their sense of…

Incorporating socially just concepts into classrooms means students' needs are considered and pedagogic activities recognise everyone and make sure that student voices are heard, acknowledged and affirmed. Art has historically provided alternative ways of making sense of our worlds, commenting on them, questioning practices and structures, and…

South African government has been promulgating pieces of legislation aimed at ensuring racial integration, especially in higher education, and indirectly enforcing acculturation in historically white universities. Studies have proven that institutional cultures in historically white universities alienate and exclude black students' identities.…

Learners' participation in mathematics decreases during their transition from primary to high school. This is despite adolescents' cognitive growth equipping them with enhanced cognitive ability; to learn mathematics. Hence low participation in mathematics does not result from cognitive deficiency. Rather, lack of motivation to learn mathematics…

Mathematics clubs are becoming increasingly researched in South Africa, yet what might constitute a curriculum for such clubs has not been discussed. We present and analyse a curriculum design for clubs that we set up and worked with over three years. The goals of the clubs were to foster strong mathematical proficiency, identities and agency…

Teaching is complicated, and is compounded by changes in the education landscape as far as diversity is concerned. This has forced education planners to reconsider the manner in which initial teacher education programs are structured, to meet the needs of the diverse classroom population. This study reports on the experiences of South African…

Sexuality education as an HIV prevention strategy is positioned as a way to empower youth in relation to their sexual identities and behaviours. While the youth subject is recognized as complex, the underlying premise is that identity can be targeted "through" sexuality education. In this paper, I present data from an ethnographic…

In the social imaginary of higher education, there are many mutually constitutive forces shaping academic identities, such as academics' habitus, dispositions, race, gender and student expectations. Our queer academic identities are furthermore robustly intertwined with, and emerging within, cultural, political and economic histories and…

Career guidance clients are seeking to craft new identities that better position them in their careers. The focus of the present article is on narrative career counselling's potential contribution in providing a meaningful and useful experience for career guidance clients. To illustrate the potential of narrative career counselling, the story…

Unmarried student mothers face challenges related to childcare, the continuation of education, and stigmatisation, which can affect their psychological health and academic work. A focus group and nine individual interviews with 10 unmarried student mothers at a South African university who had experienced an unintended pregnancy explored their…

One of the biggest debates in South Africa is the use and usefulness of apartheid categories when analysing society and societal behaviour. This paper examines the process of learning and unlearning that took place when a political reporting lecturer and an academic staff developer sought to explain racially biased voting in South Africa and its…

This instructional article demonstrates the parallels between the way art is used as forms of celebration and protest in several different cultures. The author provides thought-provoking questions to pose to students, encouraging them to research unfamiliar cultures and draw connections between multi-cultural art and the art the students create.

From the recruitment of international students and the establishment of cross-border research partnerships to study abroad programs, internationalization is viewed as a necessary means to prepare students for thoughtful action in a globalized world. In particular, studying abroad is regarded as a powerful vehicle for increasing students' global…