Melanie walker uj seminar slides

Melanie walker uj seminar slides

• 1.
  THEORISING ASPIRATIONS ANDHIGHER EDUCATION Melanie Walker University of Johannesburg, 26 May 2016
• 2.
  Justice and equality Inequalityin/through education is unfair. It is a denial of the possibility for everybody’s human capabilities to develop: • Educational inequalities reduce our capabilities to function as human beings, as well as our resources to act and participate in this world. • We should pay attention to in/equality of capability in higher education across dimesnions of ‘resource inequality’’ (unequal resources to at) and ‘existential inequality’ (unequal personhood) (Therborn 2013). • We can lay these dimensions across an axis of accessing, experiencing, achieving, and aspiring capabilities, and a financial/resource axis. Women’s narratives • interweaving of well-being, aspirational pathways, agency actions, conversion factors • intersectionality • critical agency • gender structures Rethinking first round data capabilities of: 1) safety and bodily integrity, 2) dignity and respect, 3) voice, 4) knowledge and higher education.
• 3.
  Resources/income/ financial axis intersectingwith multi-dimensional capabilities axis for aspirations achievements
• 4.
  (Valued) Wellbeing freedoms, including aspirations Functionings Social, including HE, conversion Factors: Enable/ Constrain: Publicfunding HE processes Diversity Subject field Individual conversion factors enable/ constrain Income Race, gender, class Quality of schooling Family endowments gender equality: more/less Aspirations & Agency
• 5.
  Capabilities &functionings (well-being)and agency freedoms • Well-being: freedoms to chose to be and to do in all the plural ways the person has reason to value • Agency: being able to act towards valued goals and commitments; well-being depends also on how a person achieved her functionings and whether she was active in the process of achieving these functionings or not (who decided?).
• 6.
  Aspirations • Appadurai (2004);aspirations as forward looking; aspirations are not simply individually formed but always culturally and socially embedded, enabled and constrained through social relations ‘in the thick of life’; aspirations and voice = agency; aspirations are thinner under conditions of poverty - ‘capacitation’ • Ray (2003) ‘cognitive neighbourhood’ and ‘aspirations window/gap’ – similarity, information, ‘statistical calculations’ • Conradie and Robeyns (2013): aspirations as capabilities selecting and agency unlocking
• 7.
  Achieved aspirations; new aspirations formed Conversion factors agency capability to aspire
• 8.
  Table 1: Biographicaldata (with pseudonyms) Name Race/ Ethnicity School Mother’s occupation Housing/ Neighbour Hood University field of study Funding FG Lives on/ off campus Buhle Black Xhosa Model C, English Hons in Education and Theology degree. Rural Agriculture Parents No On Nadia White Afrikaans Model C, dual Pre-school teacher Town Theology Parents No On Relebohile Black Sotho Model C, English Hons degree in education; principal Town Corporate Marketing and Comm Parents No Off - parents Sarah White Afrikaans Model C, English Teaching, counselling, studying towards psychology hons degree Town Psychology Bursaries (Govt then NRF and merit) No On Thandi Pedi/ Tswana Private, catholic Accountant; step-mother: teacher Township Botany Bursaries No On Jessica White Afrikaans Model C, Afrikaans MSc Agriculture – housewife. Rural (farm) Political science Parents No On Dineo Black Sotho/ Tswana Township Grade 1/2 education, works as domestic worker Township Education Govt bursary Yes Off Khetiwe Black Swati/Zulu Township Catholic from grade 10 Mother: Gr 8 education, domestic worker Township Psychology Financial aid, applies for loans and bursaries Yes On and off Thumi Black Xhosa Township Gr 10, works as cleaner Township Business management Financial aid – applying for bursaries Yes Off
• 9.
  Table 2: Conversionfactors Name Schooling quality Higher education processes, Funding Access to on campus activities Buhle good Positive. Agriculture PG and food security. Had planned to do theology after agriculture but chose PG study in food security, aspiration to work with the UN, h also working with young unemployed people teaching them framing. Very gender aware because of her sexuality and how it is received by her family. Parents Yes, leadership involvement Nadia good Positive for her theology degree (although had wanted to study drama) and in future plans to do missionary work in some form, aspirations shaped strongly by her religious faith Parents Yes but not much involved Relebohile good Positive, doing her honours, wants to do masters in cape Town Parents No, lives with parents. Wants to be independent of parents Sarah good Positive but initially unclear, did journalism then psychology honours, planning to do masters in counselling psychology. Bursaries Yes but not much involvement
• 10.
  Table 2: KeyConversion factors cont. Thandi good Positive, changed from microbiology to botany and future PhD; gender aware regarding limits placed on women scientists but rejects this and feels university encourages her. Bursaries Yes but not much involvement Jessica good Positive for her politics degree but experience of sexual harassment by lecturer; wants to make a difference for women Parents Yes, leadership involvement Dineo Poor, could not do medicine so choose teaching but teachers not supportive of this choice Positive for teacher education and wants to do PG study in zoology and PhD and lecture one day Govt bursary No Khetiwe Poor (3 years at good school). Lack of info re choices Positive for degree but has yet to complete BA in psychology Financial aid, applies for loans and bursaries, struggles No Thumi Poor, lacked info re HE, underprepared when she started Positive for degree, thinking about doing PhD (but still wants to be a CA one day) Financial aid – applying for bursaries, struggles but helped by Dept. No
• 11.
  capabilities agency aspirations Strengthened capabilities and agency Aspirations ‘sliding forward’
• 12.
  Experiencing higher education •Getting an education, getting a life, getting established, starting your career and just being independent... you can stand up for yourself now.…The more you are educated the more liberated your mind is and you see things in a different way….and you realise, my goodness, there's still more that I can achieve….. I think back, especially with my cousins… especially when you've grown up in the township and you've lived there, you were born there and you've lived there for so long….You're thinking around within that box, and you don't know it. (Thandi, February 2015)
• 13.
  Clustering six creativecapability dimensions • From earlier data rounds: four capability dimensions (i) safety and bodily integrity, ii) dignity and respect, iii) voice, and iv) knowledge and education). • Now: 1. affiliations with others and concern for others, including dignity, respect and recognition’[dignity and respect ] 2. resilience [added] 3. aspiring to a better future [added] 4. Bodily safety and bodily integrity (including gender awareness) 5. voice 6. knowledge and [higher] education
• 14.
  Name HE Qualif & knowledge VoiceAffiliation Aspirations Resilience Bodily safety Gender aware- ness (incl. BI) Buhle 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Jessica 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 Relebohile 5 5 4 5 5 5 2 Nadia 4 2 3 3 2 5 1 Sarah 5 4 5 5 3 5 2 Thandi 5 5 4 5 4 5 3 Khetiwe 5 3 5 5 5 5 1 Thumi 5 4 5 5 5 5 3 Dineo 5 3 5 5 5 5 1
• 15.
  To conclude….. • Asa valued capability in itself (strongly valued by women), higher education has the potential to reduce the impact of disadvantages to build individual capability sets, strengthen agency and empower women students This in turn, shapes and reshapes aspirational pathways towards what people have reason to value, thereby contributing not constricting well-being. • Universities need to pay [more] attention to gendered cultures and norms which are shaping identities perhaps in subtle and not well– recognised ways but nonetheless laying down or reinforcing patterns of identity and accommodation, which may not serve women well in the future.