This document discusses the need for a social justice perspective in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in South African higher education. It notes challenges such as low throughput rates, underfunding compared to global North universities, and curriculum remaining derivative of colonial influences. A SOTL for social justice pays attention to issues of access, recognition of diverse knowledges, participation, and producing graduates who can contribute to just societies. Guiding philosophies discussed include capabilities approach, indigenous knowledge systems, and cognitive justice. The intended outcomes of applying SOTL for social justice include curriculum restructuring projects, capacity building workshops, and a concept document for the university.

1. The Scholarship of Teaching – a
Social Justice Perspective
1st International Conference on the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
CUT, 1- 2 October 2015

2. Background
• Me
• SOTL at University of Johannesburg
• Draft ‘Manifesto’:
– Why we need SOTL for social justice
– What socially just teaching encompasses
– Guiding principles
– Guiding philosophies
– Implications for research approaches
• How we relate to students; colleagues
• The SOTL @ UJ project
• Concluding thoughts

3. The trouble with SOTL…

4. Why do we need a social justice
perspective?
Higher education in South Africa faces key
challenges in relation to teaching and learning:
• Small number of matriculating students to draw
from and simultaneously, students are drawn
from more privileged echelons of society, due to
inequality in society in general, fostered by
unequal conditions in schools across the society

5. Why…
• Low success rate and low throughput in
institutions across the country, with significant
differences between institutions (Cooper, 2015,
“stalled” revolution)
• Higher education institutions enjoy less funding
and resourcing than universities in the global
North
• The curriculum remains by and large ‘derivative’
of the centre or metropole (Badat, 2007)

6. Why…
• Social interaction and identity matters in
higher education in South Africa does not
reflect an integrated and socially just,
participatory formation

7. Participatory Parity
Tripartite dimensions:
• Maldistribution
• Misrecognition
• Misframing
(Nancy Fraser, 2008)
‘there can be no recognition without
distribution’ (de Sousa Santos, 2000)

8. Why…
South Africa’s responsibility towards the rest of
Africa
Inaugural Meeting of the Southern African Universities
Learning and Teaching (SAULT) Forum, 14 – 16 April 2014

9. Why…
• Higher education can contribute towards
peace
social development
human flourishing
sustaining our planet

10. SOTL in and for social justice
socially just pedagogy (equitable learning
conditions for academic success)
v.
and a pedagogy for social justice, (transformation of
learners, knowledges and contexts through critical
questioning and engagement) (Moje, 2007)
SoTL that is ‘authentic’, in and through higher
education (Kreber, 2013)

11. SOTL for Social Justice pays attention
to ….
• Issues of access to higher education (widening
participation)
• Epistemological access to those within higher
education (‘success’ and ‘throughput’)
• Appropriate graduate outcomes (so that
graduates can find employment; so they can
flourish and contribute to society).

12. Graduate outcomes – efficiency and
impact
knowledge as sense of what is
possible, knowledge as ethical
responsibility; education is more
than imparting skills. I don’t want a
doctor who is only a critical thinker,
when he is opening up my chest –
but I want him to be able to use
those skills in relations of inequitable
power… doctors in Germany; (Henry
Giroux)

13. Graduate outcomes
‘teaching is transformative and really making an
impact on students' lives, particularly at first-
year level where you’re kind of at that transition
between school and university, and getting to
think about learning differently. … I suppose I've
always tried to think about producing scientists,
but different kinds of scientists. So scientists
who will be able to think more broadly about the
wider context of science. Teaching that is
transformative impacts on students’ lives’
national teaching excellence award
winner – physics lecturer

14. SOTL for SJ pays attention to
• Values that inform our teaching
– Sense of purpose
– Sustain us when in despair
– Help us to circumnavigate obstacles
– Provide a sense of passion
– Provide a sense of autonomy, when we feel not in
control (Rowland, 2000)

15. … and SOTL for SJ pays attention to
• Issues pertaining to knowledge and power
(whose knowledges are valued, and how
knowledge is made accessible) (de Sousa
Santos, 2001)
• Issues of communication and democracy in
relation to language – without essentialising
speakers of particular languages or languages
themselves.

16. … and to
• Issues of voice – whose voices ‘count’ and
what are the silences? Are students heard –
which students?

17. …and to
• How the institutional culture influences
teaching and learning interactions, ..
• How time and space are used and how they
shape the teaching and learning experience

18. … time and space
‘like the lecture venues that …don’t support a projector, I’ve
actually done a workbook for students. ... if they can’t see
the board or they can’t hear me, they’ve still got the notes
in front of them … because I have problems with voice
projection in large classes, I end up circling the lecture
venues, so that everybody can get to hear me at some
point in time. …I spend a lot of time making my notes and
getting them printed … if I didn’t have to really do all of that,
in other words if students could see the board, … I wouldn’t
have to give them as comprehensive notes and then I
could actually spend time on research and my own
professional development. ‘
(time and space should not cage learning – nor cripple it)

19. … and attention to
• The respectful co-production of knowledge – where co-
producers are in other institutions such as community
organisations, schools, and where we address the gap
between higher education and other institutions.
• Issues of democratic citizenship – in relation to
internationalisation and responsibilities closer to
home.
• The relationship of epistemology to ontology – we are
not just teaching students what knowledge to learn,
but how to reason and feel towards a just future.

20. Some guiding principles
• In this project we seek to look towards the
future, a pedagogy of possibility and critical
hope. However we acknowledge
the importance of criticality and
critique

21. Some guiding principles
• A socially just pedagogy also pays attention to
the pedagogic approaches (one cannot ‘teach’
students to become critical citizens, using
approaches which discourage independence
and criticality).
• A socially just pedagogy takes into account the
past – of the institution, of students,
academics and faces the future with a sense
of continuous possibility.

22. Some guiding principles
• A socially just pedagogy assumes that
dialogue is never finished. Teaching and
learning fosters our becoming, not
brokenness.
• A socially just pedagogy requires academics to
explore their own assumptions and
experience the kinds of discovery and
vulnerability that they require from their
students.

23. Guiding philosophies
 Participatory parity (Fraser)
 Capabilities approach (Sen, Nussbaum, Walker)
 Indigenous knowledge systems (‘Odora-Hoppers)
 Pedagogy of discomfort (Boler, Zembylas)
 Political ethics of care (Tronto)
 Democratic education (Waghid)
 Democratic and inclusive education (Soudien)
 Post-humanism (Braidotti)
 Socio-materialism (Barad, Deleuze-Gattari; Mazzei and
Youngblood-Jackson)
 Cognitive justice (Visvinathan; de Sousa Santos)

25. Implications for research approaches
• Ethical approach
• Benefit students (and community)
• Students are not objects, mere data sources
• Also partners (Griffiths 2004)

26. Research relations within social justice
approach
• Collaboration amongst staff
• Appreciation and robust debate
• Respect diverse perspectives
• Capacity building
• Conscious generation of
corporate agency (Donati)
• Symmetry of
principles at all levels
SJ

27. SOTL @ UJ- Towards a Socially Just
Pedagogy
Team engaged in research

28. Examples of SOTL Projects
CURRICULUM RESTRUCTURING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION SOUTH AFRICA: Is it socially just?
Judaism 101: Rethinking Teaching Approaches
and Content
Academic literacies transitions: senior undergraduate
to postgraduate
Contemplating the heart of social justice in a Teacher
Education Service Learning (TESL) module: A case
study for using “troubling dialogues” to teach social
justice.

29. More topics
“The Sandton City of UJ” or “The Art of
Accomplishment”: Exploring the relationship
between social class, taste and student
achievement at FADA
What are the enablements and constraints
in doctoral supervision support in SA HE

30. SOTL @ UJ Team at work
Capacity building: workshops

31. SOTL @ UJ Project
Capacity building:
seminars

32. SOTL @ UJ Project
Dissemination
http://sotlforsocialjustice.blogspot.com/

33. Intended project outcomes
• Mini-conference: 1 December 2015
• Published articles
• Concept document for university on SOTL for
Social Justice
• But: the process as a learning moment

34. In conclusion …

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