CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.7 Conclusion
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2.6.3 The link between the theoretical construct and this study
According to Mahmoudi, Khoshnood, and Babaei (2014, p. 86), “the purpose of critical pedagogy is to enrich students’ overall life. In such an approach, students are given the chance to challenge others’ accepted hypotheses and to explore the relationship between their society and the content of their educational environment”. The adoption of critical pedagogy in this study is pertinent because it provides an opportunity for the PSSTs to have a voice regarding the way they are being taught at the university. The encouragement of IK and relative independence was given to the PSSTs to carry out research that enabled the participants to experience biology about their educational environment and how it can assist in preventing malnutrition, managing health challenges and in reducing hunger among students who reside in the university residences. Many students in the South African universities are products of the communities to which the university provides the conventional community engagement programs, that is, communities that are usually selected on account of their low socio-economic status. Thus, the student community serves as a group that is comparable to local communities that the universities serve to fulfil one of their core objectives.
In addition, the introduction of critical pedagogy in the curriculum for the training of pre-service teachers is pertinent to the transformation of the society (Barnum & Illari, 2016; Cappy, 2016; Ferrigno, Hemphill, & Lee, 2005; Keesing-Styles, 2003).
Therefore, by using critical pedagogy from the work of Henry Giroux and other pedagogues to view this study, I intended to conscientize the PSSTs to becoming agents of change in the society rather than being complacent professional teachers in their future practice. Critical pedagogy, in my study, enabled the PSSTs to experience a pedagogy that developed consciousness and civic responsiveness to the issues of health and nutrition and simultaneously carved a different teacher identity.
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recognizes that community can be students and or staff members of a university. Thus, this assertion resonates with my study that focused on the student participants, who are pre-service teachers in a university in KwaZulu-Natal, that forms the community of students under study.
Moreover, the literature which was surveyed provided insights into how universities and other HEIs have defined and implemented UCE in their various institutions. It should be noted that most HEIs regard UCE as the engagement with communities in the locality and regions of the universities where they collaborate, partner and provide services to meet the economic needs of the communities. On the contrary, other scholars have argued that the partnership should go beyond providing services that meet the basic needs but to involve research, which will transcend the notion or role of charity to transform the communities, and other scholastic engagements that will be of benefit to the HEIs. This call, according to the literature, is being adhered to and different forms of engagement, including SL, which is credit-bearing in some cases, have been introduced and strengthened.
Also, it was expressed in the literature that UCE with local, regional and national communities can induce social change and transformation and more especially in the South African context. South Africa is still reeling from its historical past of apartheid and many communities that were previously disadvantaged, require transformation and socioeconomic upliftment. Thus, UCE can assuage some of the social ills through partnership, collaborations, and research which can also enhance students’
professional development while studying through the various universities. The Council on Higher Education (2013, p. v) in its ‘Kagisano’ 9 issues emphasized that one of the aims of higher education in South Africa is to “contribute to the socialization of enlightened, responsible and constructively critical citizens”
In addition, criticisms of how UCE has been implemented have been alluded to by some of the authors. The literature bemoans how some universities haphazardly implement UCE without adequate conceptualisation of the program. It was discovered that some staff members carry out UCE based on personal efforts which could essentially be referred to as volunteerism. Further, researchers decry the lack of quality assurance by institutions to measure the success or failure of the UCE programs that the institutions embark upon.
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There are three main conceptual models of UCE that were worthy of explication, based on my study. These were selected based on the increasing inter-relatedness that they revealed among the three core functions of the university. They are the Silo, Intersection and Infusion models. Authors have stated that according to the Silo model, the three fundamental roles (teaching and learning, research and community engagement) were not significantly integrated. All three roles in the Silo model are independent of each other. The Intersection model did intertwine the three key roles of the university but provided room for volunteerism and outreach as part of its community engagement. Lastly, the Infusion model argues that teaching and learning and research must integrate into the implementation of CE in the institutions.
Conversely, in as much as these models have been well interrogated in the literature, models for step-by-step implementation of CE using one or different philosophical frameworks are scarce. I intend to expand on the Infusion model by proposing a detailed implementable model of U-CE.
In addition, the literature review revealed the challenge of food insecurity and hunger being experienced in universities in local and international settings. Food insecurity is experienced by university students in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia all of which can be regarded as developed countries. Many developing countries are affected by food insecurity with most of these nations found in the continent of Africa based on the literature findings. Poor socioeconomic factors, poverty, and unhealthy lifestyles were some of the reasons responsible for food insecurity among the developing countries. Scholars have also alluded to the prevalence of food insecurity among university students in South Africa which is where this study is conducted.
Issues of health such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and mental disorder had been identified to be caused by the lack of a healthy and balanced diet. According to the literature, the lack of a good diet rich in the micro and macronutrients could have detrimental effects on students’ health and their academic performance.
More so, scholars have argued for a more radical and transgressive teacher education curriculum rather than the curriculum that is technical and does not offer a transdisciplinary approach. The literature argued for a teacher curriculum that will do things differently rather than doing things better. Scholars advocated for a teacher education curriculum that will integrate scientific and contemporary societal views to
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proffer solutions to myriads of challenges in the society. Thus, through a critical pedagogy for teacher education, scholars believed that pre-service teachers’
professional identity would be influenced for their future professional practice. It was argued in the literature that a radical, transgressive and critical teachers’ education curriculum can encourage pre-service teachers to become change agents when teaching in their schools and society. Consequently, I predict that, through this study, emphasis on the development of teacher identity and IK inclusion in the pedagogy of PSSTs can make the teacher training program more radical.
Finally, the literature review and the theoretical framework gave impetus to the research design, presentation of data, analysis, findings, and recommendations that emerged from this study. The following chapter will discuss the research design and methodology that was chosen for this research.
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