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Auxin | Emeritus Professor Chrissie Boughey | Criticality and social justice
Author: Simbongile Ntwasa
Published: 01/03/2023


Title:  Criticality and social justice​

Presenter:  Emeritus Professor Chrissie Boughey


Chrissie Boughey has spent many years working in teaching and learning in higher education from a critical perspective aimed at promoting social justice. All her published work draws on critical social theory as do the many doctoral students she has supervised. With colleague Sioux McKenna, she is the author of a book Understanding higher education: Alternative perspectives, published by African Minds, which provides an analysis of teaching and learning in higher education since the late 1980s using critical social theory. ​

Blurb:

For many years now, student performance data published by the CHE in the form of the VitalStats series of cohort analyses have shown the same persistent pattern: regardless of the subjects they are studying, the qualifications for which they are enrolled and the university at which they are registered, black South Africans fare less well than their white peers in our universities.  'Common sense' claims that it is the quality of schooling that causes this simply do not make sense for a host of reasons. Rather, reasons to account for the learning experiences of black students in our universities have to be found, inter alia, in the 'mismatch' between forms of knowledge, and the practices which emerge from them, privileged inside and outside the university.

The presentation makes a case for every academic teacher to think differently about the work they do if graduates are to be able to make a contribution to the social and economic development of our country. 

Recommened reading:

Boughey, C. & McKenna, S. 2021. Understanding higher education: Alternative perspectives.  African Minds: Stellenbosch. https://www.africanminds.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Understanding-Higher-Education-WEB-01072021.pdf 


Enquiries & RSVP:

Simbongile Ntwasa [sim@sun.ac.za]

Lucy Lucks [llucks@sun.ac.za]