This presentation was given by Professor Brenda Leibowitz on 22 October 2015 for the NRF Posthumanism Project, based at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. All work in this presentation is to be credited to Professor Brenda Leibowitz

1. Academics’ Perspectives of the
Concept: Socially Just Pedagogies
A University of Johannesburg case study in the making
Seminar for Posthumanism Project
22 October 2015

2. SOTL @ UJ- Towards a
Socially Just Pedagogy
• To support a community of practice at UJ with regard to the
scholarship of teaching and learning
• To generate scholarly debate about what social justice in regard to the
teaching and learning might mean at a comprehensive South African
university
• To use findings to inform strategic planning about teaching and learning
at UJ.

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

4. SOTL @ UJ Project
Capacity building:
seminars

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

6. Intended project outcomes
• Mini-conference: 1 December 2015 (and July 2017)
• Published articles
• Concept document for university on SOTL for Social
Justice
• But: the process as a learning moment

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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)

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

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

14. 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

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

16. 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)

17. 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).

18. 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)

19. 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

20. 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)

21. … 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.

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

23. …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

24. … 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)

25. … 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.

26. 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

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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)

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

32. 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

33. Evaluation (with Kibbie and Razia)
• Consider seminars, blog entries
• Interviews
• (Follow up interviews)
• 16 interviewees from at least five faculties; 6
individuals from academic, postgraduate
support and professional development, varied
but 11 white; three non-group members; (and
more)

34. Interview questions
1. What are the higher educators’ perspectives on social justice? And on
critical, compassionate citizenship?
2. What pedagogical approaches do they use for teaching about /for social
justice?
3. What are their notions of critical citizenship/social justice education and
how do they practice this in their classrooms and to what effect? What
they are trying to achieve in their own practice regarding critical
citizenship/social justice/ social inclusion? What is their perspective
and/or practice in relation to emotional reflexivity?
4. What sort of knowledge/qualities/dispositions/values are they wanting
to develop in their students, and why?
5. What are the achievements and joys they encounter when implementing
their pedagogical approaches and how do they explain this?
6. What are the challenges or obstacles they encounter when
implementing their pedagogical approaches and how do they account
for these?

35. Coding Framework
*Unique number; *by discipline or service;
*seniority; *gender; *race; *member SOTL @
UJ; *challenges interviewee is responding to;
*opportunities interviewee is responding to;
*interviewee pays attention to what SJ is/beliefs
about SJ; *what critical citizenship is;
*philosophy, ethics cited; *what the interviewee
does; *joys, positive impact; *challenges,
frustration; *other; *coder's comment

36. Early trends
Challenges responded to:
Student diversity, inequality, knowledges not valued,
(No ‘opportunities’ in the first five)
Attention paid to:
Student outcomes; student values; tutors; student participation;
academics’ identity and agency
Philosophy/ethics cited:
Capabilities; Gramsci (but ….)
What the interviewee does:
Examples and dilemmas; PLA; groups, groups, groups …
Joys:
Student growth; acknowledgement as a teacher
Frustrations:
Resist groups; timetable packed; managerialism

37. Role and distance
We don’t really have the clout to actually – we can sort of suggest things to lecturers, this is what came
out or if something specific has come out of a specific department, but again it’s, well we’re kind of in
the middle and we don’t – you know you sort of don’t always know to what extent do I have power to
actually make sure that that change happens, you know. At the very least you can motivate those tutors
to themselves to go an find the solution within their department. But as far as us doing something,
sometimes you kind of feel, well I can’t really take it much further as I would like to challenge: not in
department so can’t give advice
Ja, you know if they have to wait for government to wake up one day, they’re going to wait a very, very,
very long time. So I don’t want them to have that victim mentality. I want them to understand that this
is your problem too. And on your level you could solve it because yours is the most powerful level to
solve it on. Because if you are strong morally, ethically and if you know what is just and what is fair ,
then nobody else is going to change your mind. Not even Zuma. Personal responsibility
No, 20% get it. It’s the other way around. And I always have to keep in mind that my students see me
as somebody from a different race group. What does she know.
Ja, white lady, you’ve got it all.
Ja, she thinks she knows everything. And I get that, I absolutely get it, but I can’t change that for them.
I can give them the information, what they do with that is up to them. And my prayer is that one day
they will realize that this had nothing to do with race or with gender or with anything, but the colour of
our hearts. If that makes sense. It’s not the colour of the skin that is important here, for me it’s the
colour of your heart.

38. Emotions
• Yes, then we talk again a lot about you and your relationship with other
people and how you can get hijacked – your brain can get hijacked and
how you prevent it. So it teaches them to not be the slaves of emotion,
but to use emotion as a different form of intelligence. To use emotion as
a form of intelligence. V
• I do, but I find there’s a gap. Some students have the ability to think
abstractly. The .........they can just go on and on forever and then you have
students who can’t think abstractly. It has to be literal. They like those
......... skills ........because that’s like ching, ching, you know. But when they
have to think on this different level, it makes it very difficult for them.
That is why I’m always grateful for the class discussions as the students do
think abstractly because they impact on the other students who can’t yet,
students who don’t think abstractly
• So, then, that component for them, there’s no reflection that – no
reflectivity, there’s just emotions, emotions, emotions. They’re tired.
They don’t want to do it. ‘Just tell me what you want, I just want to pass’,
you know. That’s what they say.

39. Language, knowledge and power
• Second language – lack of confidence,
participation
• Wants to give students textual resources
• “epistemological access”
• Access to knowledge v. acknowledging
different knowledges

40. Early conclusion
• In some cases, link between SJ and
discipline/practice
• Speakers vary from articulate about SJ to less
articulate about concepts and practices
• Speakers vary from liberal/humanist to more
‘radical’
• How to use this process to move all team
members’ understanding forward?
• - The interviews seem to be a useful mechanism
to:

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