Chapter Summary
3.2 The Research Context: The Space between Magnet and Casing of Compass
Yet while the narration of a life history compels belief, it also shields the claims made by the narrator from testing and debate (Elbaz, 1990). Itis not a 'copying process', but a
"decision-making process where people see what they want or need to see and actively reconstruct it" (Cortazzi 1993, p80; citing Buckhart, 1982). Life-history narratives compel attention and belief through mechanisms within the nature of the discourse itself. One set of these lies within the teller's organisation of the textual schema, and the other within acceptance and endorsement by the audience (van Dijk, 1977; Labov, 1972 & 1977; Cortazzi, 1993). The claims to truth of a life-history narrative lie, therefore, in a joint, interpretative, construction by the teller and listener.
Itis in the nature ofthis interpretative construction that the researcher needs vigilance as to methodological considerations. Itis her task to provide adequate methods and means of gathering and analysing the data in order to ensure a reasonable level of research validity. The following sections of this Chapter attempt to provide this. 3.2 describes the context of the research study, and introduces Nolwazi Mpumlwana to the reader. 3.3 discusses the methods of data collection, and 3.4 provides the methods of data analysis.
3.2
The Research Context: The Space between Magnet and
3.2.1 The Department of Speech and Hearing Therapy at UDW
There are three main tensions in attempting to describe the training context in which the research participant, Nolwazi Mpumlwana, is currently being educated. The first is related to the loss of all documentation concerning the Department's early history. This would have provided crucial textual support for revealing the origins of the second tension; that of the see-saw effect of the many forces acting upon and within the Department that derive from its position as the only historically Black training department in the national professional training grid. The third tension is how to best represent the multiplicity of teacher-professional opinion regarding these forces - in the context of the Department attempting change to its curriculum.
I perceive these tensions to be complicated by the sensitivity of this study as, in addition to one of the Departmental students being the research participant, I was also a teacher within the Department during 1993 and 1994, and there is general acknowledgement of my being an outspoken opponent of the current curriculum.
At the same time, the Department has welcomed the research initiative, hoping it will provide insight into their curriculum change process (Kathard, Personal Communication, 1999).
Currently, there are ten full-time, and one part-time, academic staff in the SHT Department of UDW, only two of whom are male. One of these teaches the Phonetics and Linguistics component of the course, and is not a Speech & Hearing Therapist. Of the nine women teacher-professionals, seven completed their undergraduate training at UDW, and originate from the KwaZulu-Natal Indian community.
This following representation of the Departmental context is based on interviews held with one male, and three female (one of whom was the Head of Department) teacher- professionals. Of these, one male and one female were selected on the basis of their knowledge of the Department, their long involvement in curriculum change, and their sensitivity to broad contextual issues impacting upon both. In this sense, both informants were selected on the basis of their opinion offering a rich data source, and
thus represented an instance of purposive sampling (Cohen & Manion, 1994). The additional participation of the two female staff members was unplanned, yet welcomed.
Largely deriving from points raised in Chapters One and Two of this study, I was interested in pursuing the following context-related issues in relation to their effects on the curriculum:
• The status ofUDW as an historically Indian university
• The status of the UDW Department in relation to the other training departments at historically white institutions (HWIs)
• The level of politicisation of the student and staff body
It should be noted, however, that representing the data gained from the interview process proved contentious. Staff members, in addition to interpreting the above issues in different ways, were also positioned differently in relation to their role in operationalising their effect on the teaching and learning environment. Put simply, the contention derived from the tension between the life history experience of individual staff members and the systemic structures of the higher education system. There was, therefore, no 'common view' to be extracted from the opinions of staff as regards the above issues. In attempting, therefore, to represent the context of the SHT Department at UDW, the most central factor appears to be the contestation itself.
The following section attempts to highlight several important strands of this contestation, and as such prepares the reader for the introduction of Nolwazi into this educational context in 1994.
3.2.1.1 History, Politics, a Profession and Change.
The Department ofSpeech and Hearing Therapy at UDW, and as mentioned in 2.1.4, is the only training programme located within an historically Black university, one established to cater for the educational needs of the Indian community. The University itself has been an integral part of South Africa's democratic struggle, and from its inception has been highly politicised - and actively political (Bhana, 1977; Singh, 1992).
In 1971, David Homer, a staff member of the Department of Drama, made approaches to Prof. M.L Aron at the University of the Witwatersrand, suggesting the opening of professional training at UDW. Specifically, he had noticed a high incidence of stuttering in the Indian community and was concerned that needs for remediation were not being met. He was invited to submit a curriculum. He did so; one based on communication principles from his own discipline. Prof. Aron rejected it, and she forwarded instead the national curriculum developed by the historically white Universities of Witwatersrand and Pretoria. Staffed by SHTs trained at the HWls, professional training on this curriculum was offered at UDW from 1973, and the programme itself was located within the Faculty of Education.
In 1976, however, and after a Professional Board examination of which Prof. Aron (University of the Witwatersrand) and Profs. Hay and Pienaar (University of Pretoria) were involved; the programme was judged as not meeting national standards of training and was closed (Aron, 1991; Pillay, 1997). Students still in training were transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand to complete their degree, one of whom later became HOD of the re-opened UDW training programme.12
The influence of this closure - the only example in the profession's history - cannot be viewed external to UDW's status as a Black university. This is because the apartheid government, in establishing separate universities for the dis-enfranchised population of South Africa, also significantly under-resourced these institutions. Maintaining the staff-intensive, close observation of the national training programme results in intense workload for any Department. In the case of UDW, the significant under-resourcing also led to its teacher-professionals historically serving the student teaching and learning process as opposed to furthering their academic power in the form of post- graduate degrees and research.
The training programme at UDW was re-opened in 1981 with a Witwatersrand graduate, Mrs. S. Crossley, as head of department, a position she held until 1994. The Department was additionally re-located to the then newly formed Faculty of Health
12Mr. Cyril Govender, HOD of the UDW training Department (1994-1997; Jan-August 1999).
Sciences, whose seven Departments offer professional training degrees in Optometry, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy,. Occupational Therapy, Speech & Hearing Therapy and Dentistry. They are served by the seventh Department, that of Anatomy. The importance of this, and relating to comments made in Chapter One(1.1 and 1.3), is that the specialised training of the profession occurs within a physically dedicated building training health professionals. With the exception of Psychology and some therapy practicals that occur off campus, all training takes place within this environment.
As Chapter One (1.3) pointed out, this physical isolation limits undergraduate opportunity to engage in the wider politicisation process of campus life. This separateness of undergraduate experience is compounded by systematic inculcation of the aspirant SHT into aspects of 'professional behaviour', 'professional ethics' and 'professional responsibility'; all of which serve to subsume the political education of the learner to the humanitarian and benevolent aims of professional service to others. To this day, therefore, student practicals, clients, and therapy observations take primacy over the socio-political events of university life.
In the case of the UDW Department, there is an additional structure supporting this isolation. By virtue of its location within a Faculty of professional health training departments, strong bonds exist between departments through their common, legislated, affiliation to the South African Medical and Dental Council (currently: IMDCSA). All departments share, therefore, similar structures with regard to professional boards and professional associations, and all train students o.n nationally accredited non-elective curricula. There is, therefore, a strong need to maintain the 'standards' of other training institutions in thei\ respective national grids. The fact of these common issues, in tandem to the geographical separateness of departments from mainstream campus life, has served to avert the primary gaze of the Faculty from its highly politicised home Institution.
For the Department of SHT, the nature of this inter-institutional gaze has been significantly influenced by its history as the only programme within its training grid that is situated within a Black institution, and as the only training programme to be closed by the Professional Board for SHT. Historically, this resulted in a Departmental
perception that there was a significant power inequity between itself and both the HWIs and the Professional Board of SHT.
Specific components of this perception were that:
a) The Department was good enough to train at an undergraduate level, but had little academic contribution to make to the profession above this level.
b) The Departmental staff were not sufficiently knowledgeable about discipline-specific information to contribute to national professional examinations.
c) The HWIs locked the Department, as part of a Black university, into a 'Bush College' mentality. The consequence was perceived to be that the HWIs would consult the Department on 'community' training issues, as opposed to discipline-specific knowledge.
This perception was largely perpetuated until around 1994/5 as a result of a particular sequence of contextual events, linked to the demographics of the Departmental staff.
Until a majority of Indian graduates passed through the UDW training programme and became teacher-professionals, there was no significant challenge to the standards, and control, of professional behaviour and ethics that were filtered into the UDW Department from its white female leadership and staff who were trained at the HWIs.
From 1993, however, the demographics altered to a majority ofUDW graduates holding staff positions. In addition, and in 1995, Mrs. S. Crossley resigned as head of department. After an internal election by staff, Mr. C. Govender took her place.
As already stated, in the context of significant under-resourcing of the Institution by the apartheid regime, the intense workload severely compromised the research track record of the Department. In response to University pressure for up-grading of academic qualifications, and' under Mr. Govender's leadership, in 1996 a decision was taken amongst staff members to increase their academic qualifications. By 1999, most staff members had achieved their Masters degree, and four are currently working towards their Doctoral degrees. A growing sense of academic equity with the HWIs has, therefore, weakened historic perceptions of Departmental disempowerment.
In tandem to this concentration upon personal/Departmental empowerment, however, and by virtue of the changing socio-political landscape of the country, staff have also needed to consider their responsibilities to train demographically equitable numbers of South Africans.
Within an Institutional context of fundamental change,13 and smce 1991, the Department has been committed to the transformation of its teaching and learning programme in order to reflect equity and appropriateness of educational experience. At the same time, however, graduate statistics of BAFL speaking students do not reflect any improvement as a result of these changes. In the history of the Department, only six BAFL speaking students have passed the course, and not one of these has passed all years of study at the first attempt. Equally, BAFL student intake figures have dropped steadily from a 65% first year cohort in 1994, to 22% in 1999. Examined statistically, therefore, the Department hasregressedin terms of promoting educative access equity.
These statistics, however, need to be seen in relation to three groups of contextual interests that have affected both the ability of the Department to change its curriculum, as well as constraining the direction and scope of any alterations that are made.
The first of these, and as already mentioned, concerns the wide acknowledgement within the Department that not all staff members stand in the same relationship to the scale, depth, or necessity for curriculum change. One symptom of deep-seated differences of belief results in different approaches to teaching and assessment; the consequence being an absence of constancy of educational experiences for students. In turn, the absence of constancy, in the context of a markedly overloaded syllabus, can result in profound confusion for the student. An example of this concerns my own experiences of teaching within the Department in 1993 and 1994. At that time, several students articulated to me that they viewed their prime educational task as learning the degree of social, political and educational awareness of each staff member, as they believed that complicity with the particular teacher's level of awareness was central to positive assessments of discipline-specific knowledge. A further example, supporting
13Refer to Appendix Two and the Mission Statement of the University of Durban-Westville.
the current presence of educational inconsistancy in the Department, is reflected in Nolwazi's narratives, 'Learning Alone', and 'The Monster' (Chapter Four).
The second group of contextual interests concern those exerted by the Faculty over the Department. As has been said, all Departments comprising the Faculty of Health Sciences have significantly similar interests. The similarity of these presumes that, if activated, there is significant lobbying power within the Faculty to press for changes to profession health curricula at a national level. Acknowledging this, and since 1993, there has been a history of certain individuals within the Department of SHT seeking to strategically access this lobbying power.
An important recent example of the lobbying power of the Faculty concerns the nature of its response to the necessity to increase BAFL speaking student access to, and success within, professional health training programmes.
In 1994 and 1995, and spear-headed by members of the SHT department, the Faculty reviewed its primary method of providing student support. Instead of its historical reliance on a variety of 'add-on' student development programmes, a faculty-wide decision was taken to reflect upon how changes to individual professional curricula could facilitate increased BAFL speaking student success. The aim was for individual professional programmes to interrogate their teaching programmes and processes and to establish in what manner these contributed to BAFL speaking student failure.
As part of this initiative, and recognising that the Faculty as a whole relied on academic success in mathematics and science as a central access criterion, a Social Redress policy was developed by the Faculty that increased BAFL speaking student access to 40%.
While the academic entry requirements were relaxed and many more BAFL speaking students entered professional training programmes, there were, however, no associated, wide-sweeping, changes to individual curricula. Attributed to difficulties in negotiating the scale of changes perceived necessary to both individual staff members within Departments, as well as to the relevant professional boards, the result was an extremely high, and Faculty-wide, BAFL speaking student failure rate at the end of the first academic year of implementation.
As part of its response to this failure rate, in 1996, the Faculty actually increased its academic entry requirements - a situation that exists to this day. Instead, therefore, of matriculation in maths or physical science being a requirement of entry prior to the Social Redress Policy, now potential students need both subjects. Taking into account the apartheid linked difficulties of Black high school graduation in science and mathematics, in this context the Social Redress policy has been largely impossible to implement.
From this example, it is clear that there is a disjuncture between the publicly declared policy of 'social redress', and that which is enacted by the Faculty. Although the fact of heightened admission criteria goes some way to explain why comparatively few BAFL speaking students are granted access to the SHT training programme, it also points clearly to other influences impacting upon the Faculty's notion of commitment to equity of educational opportunity in professional health worker training.
Without the Faculty entering a process of articulating the components of this disjuncture, the logic behind the heightening of admission criteria remains subject to question. The fact that these components remain unarticulated does, however, suggest that the Faculty has, and by virtue of its unexamined adherence to professional health worker policy, positioned itself in a certain way in relation to South Africa's constitution. By increasing its restrictive access criteria, the Faculty is directly at odds with the country's legislation. More significantly, and in light of its Mission Statement, this situation remains unchallenged by the University. With the Institution as its silently powerful supporter, it could be argued that the Faculty can, by virtue of its professional health worker status, continue ad infinitum to exert power over South African constitutional policy.
In light of the Faculty's restrictive entry criteria, therefore, smaller numbers of aspirant SHT students are able to access training. In spite of this, curricular reform still continues in the Department. The direction and extent of this reform is however and in, , addition to being significantly influenced by the two contextual forces discussed above, largely dependent on the success of its negotiations with the third group of important
context~al interests: those deriving from the Professional Board for Speech and Hearing therapy.
Throughout this thesis, I have attempted to point out the central role the Professional Board plays in controlling and maintaining training programmes to conform to a national standard. In addition, in Chapter Two (2.1 and 2.2) I developed an argument as to why the profession is fundamentally resistant to change. Placing the issues raised in these Chapters alongside the interests I have discussed thus far in this section, it is not, perhaps, surprising that the changes successfully made to the UDW curriculum over the years through negotiation with the Professional Board do not represent any fundamental re-conceptualisation of the epistemological basis of the training programme.
Pillay (1997) has discussed several of the attempts to change the training programme made by the Department prior to 1996. In addition to an attempt to alter student selection procedures (Smith & Beecham, 1994), a pertinent example is the 'Health and Services' course, which I developed and taught to first year students in 1993 and 1994.
This 26-lecture course was inserted as an 'add-on' offering to the syllabus. Itwas aimed at conscientising aspirant SHTs to many of the issues raised in this thesis, at the earliest point of their student careers. The highly politicised objective was to raise the critical awareness of students as regards the profession and its activities in South Africa.
Interestingly, at the time I accepted that neither the course, nor any motivation for such a course could be exposed to, or shared with, the national profession. Rather, I believed that the Health and Services course represented a necessary - yet essentially subversive - educational action.
Once I had left the Department, and from 1995, the course was withdrawn from the syllabus. Elements of it were, however, integrated into other parts of the teaching programme. Although this was dependent on the choice of individual teachers, in 1998, and largely as a result of the motivations of Harsha Kathard and Mershen Pillay, the course as a whole was resuscitated, modularised, and re-named 'Primary Health Care'.
Although there have been attempts to publicise the course at a national level through professional meetings, there exists no leverage to insist upon the necessity for its inclusion within the national curriculum (Kathard, Personal Communication, 2002).
Without this, the course itself, as well as the issues it raises about the profession, remain localised within the UDW department. In addition, and as the level of critical awareness raised within the students is intimately related to the level of politicisation of the teacher