Speaking truth to power: Understanding postgraduate education research and the educational turn in South Africa's new century

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• Professor Robert Balfour, North West University, South Africa
• Thursday 16 June 2011, 10:00-11:00
• Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, room 2S3.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Susannah Lacon.

Knowledge generation over the decade 1995-2004 in South Africa, and its relationship to the changing nature of socio-economic landscapes, suggests an ever closer relationship between the research produced in higher education, and its social and scientific purposes. These have been identified largely by the State through its regulatory frameworks, economic, and social agendas. In this talk I examine the research generation of postgraduate students of education in twenty South African higher education institutions in the first decade after apartheid. Using the Project for Postgraduate Education Research (PPER) as an example, we explore the role of large scale research projects in South Africa, and how such work might respond to Government priorities, as well as issues identified by society and the academy in partnership with the State.

Robert John Balfour is Professor and Dean of Education Sciences at North West University (Potchefstroom Campus) and Honorary Professor of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was formerly Registrar at St Augustine College of South Africa and has held fellowships at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Clare Hall (Cambridge). He teaches courses in Applied Language Studies and his latest publication Culture, Capital and Representation was released by Palgrave in 2010. He is widely published in applied linguistics and literature and holds degrees from the University of Rhodes, Natal, and Cambridge respectively, and is a published creative writer, poet, and also an exhibited painter.

This talk is part of the Visiting Scholar Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Faculty of Education Seminars
• Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, room 2S3
• Education, Equality and Development (EED) Group Seminars
• FERSA - All Events
• Visiting Scholar Seminars

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