In this article, we explore how violence is constructed in an online discussion forum to the Fees Must Fall social movement in South Africa. Our analysis shows how the discursive constructs of race, students as delinquents, and the police force as necessary to social order allow for some forms of violence to be justified and valorized and other forms to be denounced as illegitimate and deviant. Given South Africa's tumultuous racial past and its endorsement of structural violence as legitimate form of social control and discipline, it is not surprising that the function and place of violence in the current student protests has arisen as particularly contentious for many in the country. The interface with the racial profile of the movement has made this use of violence even more problematic in how the public engage with the claims to violence by different social actors. We argue that the framing of police violence as merely responsive, necessary to law and order and depoliticizing of the student movement in this forum make it possible to justify brutal acts of police violence.
Public Significance StatementThis paper contributes to research aimed at understanding the continued salience of race in the social imagery as it pertains to a post-apartheid context. This configuration of race becomes evident in current online discussion forum talks related to student protests in South Africa. The results show that race remains an underlying explanatory and affective influence in how violence during the student protests is understood and justified. This is important for understanding how race and racialisation remains a barrier to the citizenry engaging and exploring alternatives to social and structural inequalities of the past. The political struggles of the student movement therefore inevitably become reduced to acts of deviance aimed at social disintegration.
Skogsberg and Clump (2003) have argued that there are major differences in the learning styles of students depending on the course they are undertaking. Hence, psychology students demon strate a particular set of learning styles. It is vital to utilise these unique learning styles to address the needs of these students during the first-year level of higher education. Using the Biggs Study Process Questionnaire, we found that of the 319 psychology first-year students at the University of the Witwatersrand that participated, 175 demonstrated primarily surface learning. This finding was used to revise the first-year psychology tutorial programme, including assessments, in an attempt to facilitate deeper learning strategies. We discuss these initiatives and the major challenges that we have experienced in implementation.Biggs and Moore (1993) postulated that students enter a learning environment with various preconceptions. These presumptions include expectations about their success, the nature of learning, relevance and enjoyment within the learning environment, and choice about how to engage in the learning process. The students also have prior knowledge and skills, cognitive abilities, and personality variables that have a likelihood of affecting their success and attainment of goals, as well as a preparedness to apply a certain amount of effort. A number of these entry characteristics are adapted continuously in relation to their perceptions of the teaching context and their success within it.The teaching context is established through preconceptions held by the teacher concerning the learning process and how it may be facilitated. These preconceptions inform different instruction processes that lead to modifications of the students' perception of the learning environment. The teachers' perception and experience of their own teaching efficacy will moderate their implementation of instruction processes. Similarly, their perception of the students' capacity to manage different learning tasks and their perceptions of overall
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