4. Evaluation
5.2 Discussion and Implications for Intervention .1 School Community Level .1 School Community Level
At a school policy level, managers and teachers were of the opinion that the current policies and practices did not reflect the social, historical, cultural and political milieu of the school and the psychological and ideological make-up of South African adolescents.
Most of these problems surround poor and undemocratic school management, poor methods of planning, poor staff development programmes, lack of facilities, contradictions and conflicts between policy development and policy implementation strategies, as well as poverty.
Participants in this study highlighted the challenges of implementing “rigid prescribed strategies” without engaging in feedback about their effectiveness. The findings of this study thus indicated poor and undemocratic school management practices that create a “top-down” hierarchy from DOE policy to management to grade coordinators to teachers to learners. This hierarchy was seen as promoting disempowerment of teachers and distancing learners and is antethical to building school connectedness.
Both these stakeholder groups are argued to be key mechanisms in building school
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connectedness, and highlight the importance of acknowledging and involving all stakeholders in building democratic management practices to achieve connectivity.
The role of the RCL, as advocated by the DOE was also brought up by managers and teachers at the school while the role of bodies to represent learners concerns on issues such as discipline procedures was also highlighted in the situational analysis. The participation of learners in South Africa was legislated in 1996 through the South African Schools Act No.84 of 1996 (RSA, 1996). This legislation required schools with Grade 8 or higher to elect a representative council of learners (RCL). The impetus for including learners to represent their input in school decision making emanated from the worldwide movement for increased youth participation in settings in which young people find themselves on a daily basis. Learner participation in the context of the RCL refers to ‘adults working with learners to develop ways of ensuring their views are heard and valued (DfES, 2004:87). This according to Phaswana, (2010) may include learners’ involvement in school decision making bodies. Studies on learners participation in school bodies such as the RCL highlight both personal and institutional benefits (Mncube, 2008; Wilson, 2009; Carr, 2005;
Mabovula, 2009). Learners who have identified to participate have been identified to benefit from a sense of personal control, increased confidence and improved relationships with teachers and peers (Wilson, 2009).
Given that the role of the RCL was indicated as limited in promoting school connectedness and that learners indicated a need for opportunities to represent and communicate issues that they were faced with, with significant adults in their school community, the expansion of the role of the RCL into a school’s liaison group which
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integrated the involvement of significant adults (teachers and managers) was seen as necessary. The formation of a school liaison group which comprised teachers, managers and learners also aimed to provide an opportunity to intervene on hierarchical structures that promote disempowerment of teachers and disconnectivity of learners. This mechanism of intervention would allow feedback from role players as to how consistent policies and practices are with the values, habits, experiences and needs of those at whom they are targeted. Increasing student and parental involvement in schools’ decision-making processes could also enhance student-teacher relationships through promoting greater insights and understanding of each others’
values and personalities (Markham & Aveyard, 2003).
Learners in the formative evaluation indicated that engaging in deviant behavior was a way to take revenge on the school. Some learners misbehave as a means of issuing a deliberate challenge to the teacher’s authority. Ironically, teachers report that these are often children who either come from families where the children are powerless, or from families where the children are in control in which case they may also feel powerless, for example, because they feel abandoned and overwhelmed (Gootman, 1997). This suggests the importance of addressing parental involvement in adolescent development and receiving support on the home front to achieve connectivity in the school environment.
The lack of discipline in secondary schools throughout the country has long been a matter of great concern for educators in South Africa. Disruptive behaviour continues to be the most consistently discussed problem in South African schools. Naong (2007) maintains that the abolition of corporal punishment in schools has left a gap which
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cannot be filled and has led to all kinds of disciplinary problems in schools. South African teachers have had to develop alternative proactive measures to pre-empt disruptive behavior. Adolescents in this study, however, revealed that disciplinary measures of suspension and detention do not serve as deterrents but rather further disconnectivity in the school.
5.2.2 Interpersonal Learner Level
At the interpersonal level, the influences of anti-social capital groups (groups that resist school regulations and norms) that promote disconnectivity were highlighted.
The findings revealed that learners who followed the school rules and regulations and who collaborated with teachers and managers, were viewed as the conformers and thus represented the “out-group.” Adolescents experience peer pressure to be part of anti-social capital groups or the “in-groups”. The findings also indicated that young people are more likely to seek help from informal rather than formal sources, with peers as the main sources of help. Peers were the preferred source of help for personal and emotional problems over parents and teachers. While it is positive that most young people are willing to talk to their peers about their distress, young people may not always be equipped to provide helpful responses to difficult issues. For example, disturbed young people show a strong leaning toward other disturbed peers (Sarbonie
& Kauffman, 1985), and form friendships that often involve conflict, cognitive distortion, and poor social-cognitive problem solving (Marcus, 1996). There are thus doubts about the benefits of seeking help from untrained peers and research highlights the importance of peer counsellor/mentoring training as a form of intervention (Offer, Howard, Schonert, & Ostrov, 1991; Rickwood, 1995).