Ben de Souza is a Researcher in the Faculty of Education at Rhodes University in South Africa. He studied for Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Education degrees at Rhodes University, and Bachelor of Education degree at University of Malawi. His academic and research interests are inclusive education, teacher education and Education for Sustainable Development. Supervisors: Distinguished Prof Heila Lotz-Sisitka Address: Rhodes University PO Box 94 Grahamstown 6140 South Africa
This article explores the resistance exhibited by queer characters against homophobic legislation... more This article explores the resistance exhibited by queer characters against homophobic legislation and religious norms within the framework of gender performativity in selected short stories from Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis focuses on narratives from diverse regions, including Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” and “In the Best Interests of the Child” (Malawi), Monica Arac de Nyeko’s “Jambula Tree” (Uganda), Davina Owombre’s “Pelican Driver” (Nigeria), Emil Rorke’s “Poisoned Grief” (Zimbabwe), and Dolar Vasani’s “All Covered Up” (Tanzania). The article argues that the queer protagonists featured in the chosen short stories actively resist societal pressures towards compulsory sexuality and assigned gender roles. Within the sociopolitical contexts of the characters, laws and religious doctrines prescribe and enforce a heteronormative framework that homosexual characters are compelled to adhere to. The theoretical framework guiding this analysis draws from Judith Butler’s gender performativity, which challenges the assumption of a direct alignment between biological sex and gender identity. According to Butler, being biologically male or female does not dictate one’s gender identity, and the same principle applies to sexuality. The article examines how heteronormative laws and homophobic religious doctrines contribute to the construction of mandatory sexuality and assigned gender roles. Through the lens of characterisation, the article analyses how queer characters in the selected stories actively challenge and denounce the homophobia perpetuated by these legal and religious structures. This exploration sheds light on the nuanced ways in which gender performativity theory manifests in the lived experiences and narratives of queer individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Malawi has a twin-track system of primary and secondary education. In this system, some learners ... more Malawi has a twin-track system of primary and secondary education. In this system, some learners with special educational needs are enrolled at regular schools while others are still in special schools. Research has shown that regular schools receive learners with special educational needs into the system, but with the possibility of enabling and constraining their developmental and learning abilities. Put metaphorically, when learners with special educational needs are placed at regular schools, they are dressed in straitjackets that may enable or constrain their development and learning. A straitjacket refers to the freedom and limitations that regular schools give learners with special educational needs. When prisoners and people with mental health conditions are dressed in straitjackets, the foremost reason is to ensure that they can easily be restrained once they turn violent. This situation can be understood through a theoretical frame of what Lev Vygotsky terms the zone of actual development versus the zone of proximal development employed in this study. The study conducted in-depth interviews with ten regular teachers from five regular secondary schools in the SouthWest Education Division in Malawi. The results from the interviews show that inclusive education is failing at the point of implementation due to (1) a lack of capacity development for regular teachers; (2) limited support for learners with special educational needs; (3) inadequate specialist teachers; and (4) lack of parental and community involvement. These challenges originate from an entrenched view of special education that makes the transition to inclusive education cumbersome. I argue that special education should be used as a steppingstone into inclusivity to expand learning, rather than as a discriminating tool against learners with special educational needs. The study proposes a third-space schooling model in which special education facilitates inclusivity towards the zone of proximal development. The study concludes that the third-space model has the potential to help Malawi and other countries to move towards meaningful, inclusive education.
This qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education i... more This qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education in Malawi. The study involved a document review of inclusive education policies and strategies and in-depth semi-structured interviews with mainstream teachers at a secondary school in Malawi. The results from the document review
show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners’ cognitive proficiencies. However, the analysis of the semistructured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. Therefore, I argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. The study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. I recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the Malawian and other southern African education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education.
This study analyses policy directives and strategies for inclusive secondary education in Malawi.... more This study analyses policy directives and strategies for inclusive secondary education in Malawi. The study argues that policy directives and strategies conceptualize inclusive education as a mere reversal of special education without considering the context of mainstream education, such as roles assigned to mainstream teachers. For example, the policy directives and strategies have not well defined the roles of mainstream teachers, yet mandated the same teachers to translate the directives into actions. This dire situation has led to policy-to-practice disparities in inclusive secondary education. The study uses documentary review and interviews as data generation methods. Disability studies critique is employed as a theoretical substratum to scrutinize inclusive secondary education policy and practice. The study recommends that future policy formulation in Malawi should be informed by teachers’ experiences while putting their defined roles at the centre instead of simply reversing the tenets of special education which has proved to be backfiring.
This paper reports a qualitative study aimed at assessing pedagogical practices that Malawian mai... more This paper reports a qualitative study aimed at assessing pedagogical practices that Malawian mainstream secondary teachers interpret from national policies and strategies on inclusive education. The study was conducted within an interpretive research paradigm using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological systems theoretical framework by administering an open-ended questionnaire to 33 mainstream secondary teachers in four schools in the Lower Shire districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje in Malawi. The study also involved a review of national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi. It was found that national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi place much emphasis on the provision of special needs for learners with disabilities while mainstream secondary teachers aspire to move towards the promotion of inclusive needs for all the learners. This paper, therefore, argues that the stipulations of national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi may, instead of enabling, constrain mainstream secondary teachers’ development of inclusive pedagogical proficiency. The paper recommends a bioecological systems-oriented policy formulation and implementation that could enable mainstream secondary teachers in Malawi and beyond to reflect on their preparedness for inclusivity and help to maximise the benefits of inclusive education for all learners.
The purpose of the article is to reflect on the journey of inclusive education implementation wor... more The purpose of the article is to reflect on the journey of inclusive education implementation worldwide with a particular interest on Africa. The article argues that the pursuit of inclusive education in Africa has not be a silver-tongued educational excursion. Rather, the jaunt to inclusive education on the continent has been a wobbly one. It has been a back-and-forth endeavour since the early 1990s when parleys and activism on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in societies in general and in schools in particular emerged. Before that, societies regarded persons with disabilities as recluses. Conspicuously, persons with physical disabilities often lived indoors or in forests as a result of the unacceptance by their societies and families. Societies and families widely believed that a physical disability was a source of misfortune or an indicator of a curse. Thus, the belief institutionalised the exclusion of persons with physical disabilities. Much as in the 1940s the issue of human rights was of major apprehension; the matter did not apply to persons with disabilities. As George Orwell satirised in Animal Farm, all people were equal, but some people (non-disabled ones) were more equal than others (disabled ones). Thus, against such inequalities, the concept of inclusion was advocated within mainstream education globally including in several African countries.
Southern Africa Journal of Environmental Education, 2020
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted socioeconomic activities, including formal and ... more Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted socioeconomic activities, including formal and non-formal education, across the world at lightning speed. By mid-April 2020, it had interrupted the formal education of nearly 1.6 billion students in 192 countries. COVID-19's disruption of education in Africa, and especially in southern Africa, has been severe for several reasons. However, educational responses to COVID-19 suggest that it has stimulated the appetite for developing educational innovations-silver linings to the COVID-19 cloud. This paper is based on interviews conducted with 56 parents, students and educators involved in formal and non-formal education in Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We identified the main educational challenges in these countries as being concerned with adapting to: (i) online education and learning, (ii) continuity of education from home, and (iii) community-based learning in small groups. The silver linings that we identified are: (i) putting greater emphasis on finding context-specific solutions to education and health problems (improvisation), which is important for educational relevance and reveals the value of local actors, (ii) making linkages between social and ecological systems clearer, which is making the value of education for sustainable development (ESD) in this century more explicit, and (iii) revealing structural inequality and justice issues in education, which draws attention to the need for urgently addressing them as part of transformative change in education and sustainable development.
COVID-19 effectively put a stop to learning in schools and working in the informal sector. The in... more COVID-19 effectively put a stop to learning in schools and working in the informal sector. The internet and social media are full of stories of how the young are successfully responding to the pandemic but not much is known on the marginalized young people and how their exclusion status is further aggravated by COVID-19. Particular attention will be paid to the gender factor in understanding the types of exclusion. By documenting selected life stories of the excluded (in school and out school), this piece of research aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of exclusion among the youth amidst COVID-19. Using a biographical approach, the researchers will be able to come up with a profile of the excluded youth and their survival and resilient mechanisms such as social movement-building, and/or strategies to obtain assistance from existing institutions/originations.
This article examines characterisation and symbolism as narrative strategies that challenge anti-... more This article examines characterisation and symbolism as narrative strategies that challenge anti-LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) cultures in four short stories – Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” and “In the Best Interests of the Child”, Monica Arac de Nyeko’s “Jambula Tree” and Beatrice Lamwaka’s “Chief of the Home”. The main thrust of the article is that gender as represented in these works of fiction does not conform to the hegemonic social binaries prevalent in Malawi and Uganda, the national contexts for these stories. Instead, it is performative rather than fixed, and more fluid than hegemonic conceptions would have it. Using the Butlerian notion of gender performativity, this article demonstrates how the aforementioned narrative strategies are used to critique cultures (and other social establishments such as laws and religions) that are eventually liable for the prevalent homophobic attitudes towards LGBTI, particularly homosexuality and lesbianism. The article reads the selected stories in ways that help challenge widespread and entrenched bigotry regarding alternative sexualities.
The Government of Malawi and its education partners are currently implementing the National Educa... more The Government of Malawi and its education partners are currently implementing the National Education Policy (2016) and the National Strategy on Inclusive Education (2017-2021). My study explored how mainstream secondary teachers interpret policies and strategies, and transition to the practice of supporting learners with physical disabilities. Previous studies revealed policy-to-practice disparities in the Malawian inclusive secondary education but did not proffer teacher-oriented strategies that can mitigate the disparities and enhance inclusive education. My study argued that effective strategies that could lessen policy-to-practice mismatches and advance inclusive education primarily rest with mainstream teachers, as they mediate policy and practice. This study drew on Clough and Corbett’s disability studies critique and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems perspective to form theoretical and analytical frameworks for understanding the problem and discussing the findings. The study generated primary data from the Lower Shire districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje in Malawi. Thirty-three teachers, randomly selected from four schools, responded to questionnaires. In-depth, face to face interviews were conducted with purposely selected teachers from the same four schools. The study also generated secondary data from a review of policy documents. The findings showed that policy directives are shifting inclusive education from social perspectives to political perspectives, whereby mainstream teachers regard national policies and strategies as political responses to demands for inclusion. The findings further showed that teachers’ practices are moving away from the provision of special needs to the promotion of inclusive needs, whereby inclusive education benefits all learners. The study found that some teachers are resisting inclusive education, and would like learners with physical disabilities to return to special schools, thus controverting policy directives. As a way forward, this study recommended that future policy formulation and implementation in the Malawian mainstream secondary education should consider the bioecological systems approach, whereby policymakers systematically interact with the mainstream secondary teachers to improve their perspectives, competencies and practices on inclusive education.
This guide has been developed specifically to assist student teachers who are practising teaching... more This guide has been developed specifically to assist student teachers who are practising teaching in a school classroom. Student teachers are expected to give their best in teaching students as it is time to showcase skills gained from theoretical courses. Much as the student teachers will be ‘practising teaching’, the students will not be ‘practising learning’ but they will be ‘actually learning’. Thus, the student teachers should treat the teaching component of their school-based experience seriously. This guide takes you through a few decisive elements of classroom teaching and learning process.
This long essay discusses the homophobia that is embedded in the cultures, laws and religions of ... more This long essay discusses the homophobia that is embedded in the cultures, laws and religions of Africa. Applying Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, the paper analyses seven short stories by different African writers such d Stanley Kenani and Monica Arac de Nyeko. The thesis argues that culture, law and religion are responsible for growth of homophobia in Africa as they institutionalize heterosexuality and penalize alternative sexualities including homosexuality. This paper investigates how fiction writers use the same three factors to denounce homophobia through characters that are defiant and rebellious. The study concludes that homosexuality in Africa is suppressed by powerful institutions such as culture, law and religion and that the performativity of gender is fabricated by these institutions.
This article explores the resistance exhibited by queer characters against homophobic legislation... more This article explores the resistance exhibited by queer characters against homophobic legislation and religious norms within the framework of gender performativity in selected short stories from Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis focuses on narratives from diverse regions, including Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” and “In the Best Interests of the Child” (Malawi), Monica Arac de Nyeko’s “Jambula Tree” (Uganda), Davina Owombre’s “Pelican Driver” (Nigeria), Emil Rorke’s “Poisoned Grief” (Zimbabwe), and Dolar Vasani’s “All Covered Up” (Tanzania). The article argues that the queer protagonists featured in the chosen short stories actively resist societal pressures towards compulsory sexuality and assigned gender roles. Within the sociopolitical contexts of the characters, laws and religious doctrines prescribe and enforce a heteronormative framework that homosexual characters are compelled to adhere to. The theoretical framework guiding this analysis draws from Judith Butler’s gender performativity, which challenges the assumption of a direct alignment between biological sex and gender identity. According to Butler, being biologically male or female does not dictate one’s gender identity, and the same principle applies to sexuality. The article examines how heteronormative laws and homophobic religious doctrines contribute to the construction of mandatory sexuality and assigned gender roles. Through the lens of characterisation, the article analyses how queer characters in the selected stories actively challenge and denounce the homophobia perpetuated by these legal and religious structures. This exploration sheds light on the nuanced ways in which gender performativity theory manifests in the lived experiences and narratives of queer individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Malawi has a twin-track system of primary and secondary education. In this system, some learners ... more Malawi has a twin-track system of primary and secondary education. In this system, some learners with special educational needs are enrolled at regular schools while others are still in special schools. Research has shown that regular schools receive learners with special educational needs into the system, but with the possibility of enabling and constraining their developmental and learning abilities. Put metaphorically, when learners with special educational needs are placed at regular schools, they are dressed in straitjackets that may enable or constrain their development and learning. A straitjacket refers to the freedom and limitations that regular schools give learners with special educational needs. When prisoners and people with mental health conditions are dressed in straitjackets, the foremost reason is to ensure that they can easily be restrained once they turn violent. This situation can be understood through a theoretical frame of what Lev Vygotsky terms the zone of actual development versus the zone of proximal development employed in this study. The study conducted in-depth interviews with ten regular teachers from five regular secondary schools in the SouthWest Education Division in Malawi. The results from the interviews show that inclusive education is failing at the point of implementation due to (1) a lack of capacity development for regular teachers; (2) limited support for learners with special educational needs; (3) inadequate specialist teachers; and (4) lack of parental and community involvement. These challenges originate from an entrenched view of special education that makes the transition to inclusive education cumbersome. I argue that special education should be used as a steppingstone into inclusivity to expand learning, rather than as a discriminating tool against learners with special educational needs. The study proposes a third-space schooling model in which special education facilitates inclusivity towards the zone of proximal development. The study concludes that the third-space model has the potential to help Malawi and other countries to move towards meaningful, inclusive education.
This qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education i... more This qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education in Malawi. The study involved a document review of inclusive education policies and strategies and in-depth semi-structured interviews with mainstream teachers at a secondary school in Malawi. The results from the document review
show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners’ cognitive proficiencies. However, the analysis of the semistructured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. Therefore, I argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. The study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. I recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the Malawian and other southern African education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education.
This study analyses policy directives and strategies for inclusive secondary education in Malawi.... more This study analyses policy directives and strategies for inclusive secondary education in Malawi. The study argues that policy directives and strategies conceptualize inclusive education as a mere reversal of special education without considering the context of mainstream education, such as roles assigned to mainstream teachers. For example, the policy directives and strategies have not well defined the roles of mainstream teachers, yet mandated the same teachers to translate the directives into actions. This dire situation has led to policy-to-practice disparities in inclusive secondary education. The study uses documentary review and interviews as data generation methods. Disability studies critique is employed as a theoretical substratum to scrutinize inclusive secondary education policy and practice. The study recommends that future policy formulation in Malawi should be informed by teachers’ experiences while putting their defined roles at the centre instead of simply reversing the tenets of special education which has proved to be backfiring.
This paper reports a qualitative study aimed at assessing pedagogical practices that Malawian mai... more This paper reports a qualitative study aimed at assessing pedagogical practices that Malawian mainstream secondary teachers interpret from national policies and strategies on inclusive education. The study was conducted within an interpretive research paradigm using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological systems theoretical framework by administering an open-ended questionnaire to 33 mainstream secondary teachers in four schools in the Lower Shire districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje in Malawi. The study also involved a review of national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi. It was found that national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi place much emphasis on the provision of special needs for learners with disabilities while mainstream secondary teachers aspire to move towards the promotion of inclusive needs for all the learners. This paper, therefore, argues that the stipulations of national policies and strategies on inclusive education in Malawi may, instead of enabling, constrain mainstream secondary teachers’ development of inclusive pedagogical proficiency. The paper recommends a bioecological systems-oriented policy formulation and implementation that could enable mainstream secondary teachers in Malawi and beyond to reflect on their preparedness for inclusivity and help to maximise the benefits of inclusive education for all learners.
The purpose of the article is to reflect on the journey of inclusive education implementation wor... more The purpose of the article is to reflect on the journey of inclusive education implementation worldwide with a particular interest on Africa. The article argues that the pursuit of inclusive education in Africa has not be a silver-tongued educational excursion. Rather, the jaunt to inclusive education on the continent has been a wobbly one. It has been a back-and-forth endeavour since the early 1990s when parleys and activism on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in societies in general and in schools in particular emerged. Before that, societies regarded persons with disabilities as recluses. Conspicuously, persons with physical disabilities often lived indoors or in forests as a result of the unacceptance by their societies and families. Societies and families widely believed that a physical disability was a source of misfortune or an indicator of a curse. Thus, the belief institutionalised the exclusion of persons with physical disabilities. Much as in the 1940s the issue of human rights was of major apprehension; the matter did not apply to persons with disabilities. As George Orwell satirised in Animal Farm, all people were equal, but some people (non-disabled ones) were more equal than others (disabled ones). Thus, against such inequalities, the concept of inclusion was advocated within mainstream education globally including in several African countries.
Southern Africa Journal of Environmental Education, 2020
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted socioeconomic activities, including formal and ... more Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted socioeconomic activities, including formal and non-formal education, across the world at lightning speed. By mid-April 2020, it had interrupted the formal education of nearly 1.6 billion students in 192 countries. COVID-19's disruption of education in Africa, and especially in southern Africa, has been severe for several reasons. However, educational responses to COVID-19 suggest that it has stimulated the appetite for developing educational innovations-silver linings to the COVID-19 cloud. This paper is based on interviews conducted with 56 parents, students and educators involved in formal and non-formal education in Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We identified the main educational challenges in these countries as being concerned with adapting to: (i) online education and learning, (ii) continuity of education from home, and (iii) community-based learning in small groups. The silver linings that we identified are: (i) putting greater emphasis on finding context-specific solutions to education and health problems (improvisation), which is important for educational relevance and reveals the value of local actors, (ii) making linkages between social and ecological systems clearer, which is making the value of education for sustainable development (ESD) in this century more explicit, and (iii) revealing structural inequality and justice issues in education, which draws attention to the need for urgently addressing them as part of transformative change in education and sustainable development.
COVID-19 effectively put a stop to learning in schools and working in the informal sector. The in... more COVID-19 effectively put a stop to learning in schools and working in the informal sector. The internet and social media are full of stories of how the young are successfully responding to the pandemic but not much is known on the marginalized young people and how their exclusion status is further aggravated by COVID-19. Particular attention will be paid to the gender factor in understanding the types of exclusion. By documenting selected life stories of the excluded (in school and out school), this piece of research aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of exclusion among the youth amidst COVID-19. Using a biographical approach, the researchers will be able to come up with a profile of the excluded youth and their survival and resilient mechanisms such as social movement-building, and/or strategies to obtain assistance from existing institutions/originations.
This article examines characterisation and symbolism as narrative strategies that challenge anti-... more This article examines characterisation and symbolism as narrative strategies that challenge anti-LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) cultures in four short stories – Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” and “In the Best Interests of the Child”, Monica Arac de Nyeko’s “Jambula Tree” and Beatrice Lamwaka’s “Chief of the Home”. The main thrust of the article is that gender as represented in these works of fiction does not conform to the hegemonic social binaries prevalent in Malawi and Uganda, the national contexts for these stories. Instead, it is performative rather than fixed, and more fluid than hegemonic conceptions would have it. Using the Butlerian notion of gender performativity, this article demonstrates how the aforementioned narrative strategies are used to critique cultures (and other social establishments such as laws and religions) that are eventually liable for the prevalent homophobic attitudes towards LGBTI, particularly homosexuality and lesbianism. The article reads the selected stories in ways that help challenge widespread and entrenched bigotry regarding alternative sexualities.
The Government of Malawi and its education partners are currently implementing the National Educa... more The Government of Malawi and its education partners are currently implementing the National Education Policy (2016) and the National Strategy on Inclusive Education (2017-2021). My study explored how mainstream secondary teachers interpret policies and strategies, and transition to the practice of supporting learners with physical disabilities. Previous studies revealed policy-to-practice disparities in the Malawian inclusive secondary education but did not proffer teacher-oriented strategies that can mitigate the disparities and enhance inclusive education. My study argued that effective strategies that could lessen policy-to-practice mismatches and advance inclusive education primarily rest with mainstream teachers, as they mediate policy and practice. This study drew on Clough and Corbett’s disability studies critique and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems perspective to form theoretical and analytical frameworks for understanding the problem and discussing the findings. The study generated primary data from the Lower Shire districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje in Malawi. Thirty-three teachers, randomly selected from four schools, responded to questionnaires. In-depth, face to face interviews were conducted with purposely selected teachers from the same four schools. The study also generated secondary data from a review of policy documents. The findings showed that policy directives are shifting inclusive education from social perspectives to political perspectives, whereby mainstream teachers regard national policies and strategies as political responses to demands for inclusion. The findings further showed that teachers’ practices are moving away from the provision of special needs to the promotion of inclusive needs, whereby inclusive education benefits all learners. The study found that some teachers are resisting inclusive education, and would like learners with physical disabilities to return to special schools, thus controverting policy directives. As a way forward, this study recommended that future policy formulation and implementation in the Malawian mainstream secondary education should consider the bioecological systems approach, whereby policymakers systematically interact with the mainstream secondary teachers to improve their perspectives, competencies and practices on inclusive education.
This guide has been developed specifically to assist student teachers who are practising teaching... more This guide has been developed specifically to assist student teachers who are practising teaching in a school classroom. Student teachers are expected to give their best in teaching students as it is time to showcase skills gained from theoretical courses. Much as the student teachers will be ‘practising teaching’, the students will not be ‘practising learning’ but they will be ‘actually learning’. Thus, the student teachers should treat the teaching component of their school-based experience seriously. This guide takes you through a few decisive elements of classroom teaching and learning process.
This long essay discusses the homophobia that is embedded in the cultures, laws and religions of ... more This long essay discusses the homophobia that is embedded in the cultures, laws and religions of Africa. Applying Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, the paper analyses seven short stories by different African writers such d Stanley Kenani and Monica Arac de Nyeko. The thesis argues that culture, law and religion are responsible for growth of homophobia in Africa as they institutionalize heterosexuality and penalize alternative sexualities including homosexuality. This paper investigates how fiction writers use the same three factors to denounce homophobia through characters that are defiant and rebellious. The study concludes that homosexuality in Africa is suppressed by powerful institutions such as culture, law and religion and that the performativity of gender is fabricated by these institutions.
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show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners’ cognitive proficiencies. However, the analysis of the semistructured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. Therefore, I argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. The study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. I recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the Malawian and other southern African education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education.
show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners’ cognitive proficiencies. However, the analysis of the semistructured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. Therefore, I argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. The study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. I recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the Malawian and other southern African education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education.