Lesley Le Grange - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Lesley Le Grange

South African journal of higher education, Apr 28, 2004

The pace of technological and environmental changes has reached unprecedented levels in recent de... more The pace of technological and environmental changes has reached unprecedented levels in recent decades. It is unlikely that the accelerating pace of these changes will slacken from "the rising gale forces our species has set in motion" (Jones 1998:231). Critical futures scholars argue that the status quo future is unsustainable and that contemporary society needs to envision and work towards more sustainable futures. Consideration given to futures concerns is important for higher education so as to aid us in understanding the role of futures images in our thinking, planning and decision making, all of which could lead towards (un)sustainable paths for the future. In this essay I explore implications that the envisioning of sustainable futures might have for the university. (South African Journal of Higher Education: 2003 17 (3): 90-96)

South African journal of higher education, Feb 6, 2009

In their article Ogunniyi and Ogawa explore the prospects and challenges of training South Africa... more In their article Ogunniyi and Ogawa explore the prospects and challenges of training South African and Japanese educators to enact an indigenized science curriculum. They discuss the nature of science and the nature of indigenous knowledge (IK) and also that IK is acknowledged alongside Western science as a legitimate way of knowing in the new curricula of both countries. Ogunniyi and Ogawa argue that although indigenous knowledge is recognized in the science curricula of the two countries, successful implementation will require specific teacher training. I wish to address three areas of their work that afford an opportunity for further discussion. First, I argue that a focus on the performative side of science provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between Western science and indigenous knowledge. Second, I discuss the role of indigenous knowledge in a global knowledge economy, an area that Ogunniyi and Ogawa do not give much attention. Third, I elaborate on the challenges that an indigenized science curriculum has for teacher education, another area which I feel Ogunniyi and Ogawa do not do justice to.

South African journal of higher education, Nov 1, 2017

South African Journal of Science and Technology, Mar 6, 2012

Acta Academica, Dec 1, 2001

Journal of Education, 2004

There is a growing interest in African philosophy in South Africa following the dismantling of le... more There is a growing interest in African philosophy in South Africa following the dismantling of legal apartheid. In recently published works we also witnessed arguments presented for/against African philosophy’s centrality in a new vision for philosophy of education in South Africa. In this paper I respond to these debates by raising some of the difficulties with the term African philosophy and the potential danger of a single philosophy dominating education theory and practice in South Africa.

Curriculum Journal, Nov 23, 2022

BRILL eBooks, May 24, 2022

South African journal of higher education, Jan 29, 2010

There has been considerable debate on the nature of scholarship over the past two decades. A key ... more There has been considerable debate on the nature of scholarship over the past two decades. A key contribution to this debate is a seminal work in which Boyer (1990) articulates an expanded notion of scholarship. One of the four functions of scholarship that Boyer identifies in this expanded view of scholarship is the scholarship of integration. In this article I argue that this function is too narrowly conceived; a broader view of this construct is needed to reflect the complexity of this terrain of scholarship. I argue for a multi-dimensional model of scholarship that integrates three forms of scholarship with Boyer's four functions of scholarship. I also discuss the implications this model of scholarship has for the research university.

South African journal of higher education, Jan 24, 2007

Extracted from text ... 189 Editorial Curriculum: A neglected area in discourses on higher educat... more Extracted from text ... 189 Editorial Curriculum: A neglected area in discourses on higher education L. le Grange Department of Curriculum Studies Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch, South Africa Email: llg@sun.ac.za INTRODUCTION Curriculum is a complex and contested terrain that is variously described based on disparate philosophical lenses through which it is viewed. When the word curriculum is invoked it is generally understood as applying to school education, that is, to the prescribed learning programmes of schools or more broadly to the learning opportunities provided to school learners, rather than to higher education. A survey of articles published in prominent curriculum journals such as Journal ..

Sustainability

Sustainability and its relationship with education has been the subject of much contestation in r... more Sustainability and its relationship with education has been the subject of much contestation in recent decades. This article reviews some of the debates on sustainability in the context of higher education and raises concern about the narrowing of the discourse on sustainability and sustainability education in the neoliberal university. The methods used in this article are philosophical, combining traditional concept analysis with concept creation. The later method holds that philosophical concepts are created or reimagined so that they have transformative effects in the world. The key finding of this conceptual exploration is that sustainability (education) can be liberated from the fetters of neoliberalism and can be imagined differently. This might be possible in the “University of Beauty”. Moreover, the potential for reimagining sustainability higher education already exists within the neoliberal university and in those who inhabit it. This is because sustainability higher educa...

Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting

South African Journal of Higher Education

In this article I review the emergence of transdisciplinary research and in particular the integr... more In this article I review the emergence of transdisciplinary research and in particular the integrative approach to this category of research. I examine the potential of the integrative approach to achieve cognitive justice-whether it decentres Western science and gives equitable treatment to other ways of knowing such as indigenous knowledge. I aver that transformations that have occurred within discourses on transdisciplinary research have not changed the Western cultural archive itself and that Western science continues to dominate other ways of knowing in the integrative approach in transdisciplinary research. I draw on insights from Deleuze and Guattari to open up ways of reimagining transdisciplinary research as a decolonising process.

On the threshold of a new millennium crises abound in all spheres of life - political, educationa... more On the threshold of a new millennium crises abound in all spheres of life - political, educational, ecological, socio-economic and personal. These crises are partly the consequence of social arrangements and modes of thought that may no longer be relevant to our times. The past few decades have witnessed modern values and beliefs increasingly being challenged, and the emergence of a new condition described variously as post-fordist, post-enlightenment, post-industrial, post-modern, reflexive modernisation, and so on. Crises that we face as this century draws to a close cannot be addressed by the same modes of thought that were responsible in creating them. The author argues that reductionistic, dualistic and mechanistic modes of thought are no longer appropriate for understanding and meeting the challenges we face in a rapidly changing and globally interconnected world. The author proposes that we need to source new metaphors cognate to an ecological (holistic) world-view which char...

South African journal of higher education, 2008

Environmental problems have reached unprecedented levels, raising the perennial existential quest... more Environmental problems have reached unprecedented levels, raising the perennial existential question of how we should live once more, as well as educational ones such as what and how we should learn. There have also been calls in recent decades for development and living to occur more sustainably and the years from 2005 to 2014 have been declared the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. It is against this background that I discuss the notion of sustainability in relation to higher education, emphasising the limits of disciplinary knowledge in capturing the complexity associated with the construct sustainability.

South African journal of higher education, 2014

Even though the term 'curriculum' has its origin in higher education it is a neglected te... more Even though the term 'curriculum' has its origin in higher education it is a neglected term in discourses on higher education. In the field of Curriculum Studies it is the school rather than the university curriculum that is mainly studied. This may be due to the relative autonomy that higher education institutions (HEIs) enjoy and the academic freedom granted its members. The downside of institutional autonomy and academic freedom in the South African context is that the Africanisation/decolonisation of curricula has been left unaddressed by some universities. Twenty years into South Africa's democracy it is an opportune time to again ask the key curriculum question: What knowledge is of most worth? What knowledge is of most worth to South African university students located on the African continent and who form part of a global society? In this article, the author shall discuss the Africanisation of the university curriculum by drawing on insights from: the sociology o...

This article reports a case study that formed part of the South Africa/Australia Institutional Li... more This article reports a case study that formed part of the South Africa/Australia Institutional Links project entitled "Educating for socio-ecological change: capacity-building in environmental education". The case study explores some of the pedagogical processes used in a preservice education course at the University of Stellenbosch. It is argued that education policy changes in South Africa post 1990 have provided space for the transformation of pedagogical practices in the context of teacher education. Further, the role that collegial relationships between lecturer and students played in enabling critical reflection, is illuminated.