Abstract
This chapter argues for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) as a means to advance both a socially just pedagogy and a pedagogy for social justice in higher education. The concept of a socially just pedagogy is defined and the implications of this for SOTL for social justice are discussed. Most importantly, the chapter argues for a form of reciprocity or alignment, where the kind of learning and attributes one would expect on the part of learners, would be expected of the educators, as teachers, researchers and learners. The framework is informed by earlier work done by Leibowitz (2016) and Bozalek and Leibowitz et al. (2012), as well as important writing on criticality and emotions (Zembylas 2014) troubled knowledge (Jansen 2009) and learned ignorance (Santos 2001). This discussion forms a conceptual framework against which the empirical section of the chapter is refracted. The empirical section is an outcome of an action-based and collaborative support project, consisting of seminars, workshops and other dissemination opportunities, to put into practice the ideas on social justice and SOTL that are discussed in the conceptual framework. For this, study members of the SOTL @ UJ research project interviewed both members of the project and academics who are not members. Altogether, 20 interviews have been conducted. The analysis of the interviews focuses on absences, silences, contradictions, interesting tensions and the implications of the interviews for the use of SOTL as a means towards establishing socially just pedagogies in higher education.
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Notes
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Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning “humanity to others.” It also means, “I am what I am because of who we all are.” www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu
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Acknowledgments
This study acknowledges support from an NRF-funded project, “Participatory Parity and Transformative Pedagogies for Qualitative Outcomes in Higher Education,” Grant no: 90384.
The writers express our thanks to all the SOTL @ UJ: Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy group members who participated in the interviews, as well as those who commented on the chapter.
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Appendix A
Appendix A
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What are the higher educators’ perspectives on social justice? And on critical, compassionate citizenship?
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What pedagogical approaches do they use for teaching about /for social justice?
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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?
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What sort of knowledge/qualities/dispositions/values are they wanting to develop in their students, and why?
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What are the achievements and joys they encounter when implementing their pedagogical approaches and how do they explain this?
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What are the challenges or obstacles they encounter when implementing their pedagogical approaches and how do they account for these?
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Leibowitz, B., Naidoo, K., Mayet, R. (2017). Teaching in and for Social Justice. In: Osman, R., Hornsby, D. (eds) Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46176-2_5
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