Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-252).

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Langa, Patrício Vitorino
Other Authors: Muller, Johan
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: School of Education 2015
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867613299515850752
access_status_str Open Access
author Langa, Patrício Vitorino
author2 Muller, Johan
author_browse Langa, Patrício Vitorino
Muller, Johan
author_facet Muller, Johan
Langa, Patrício Vitorino
author_sort Langa, Patrício Vitorino
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-252).
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14621
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:55.830Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
publishDateSort 2015
publisher School of Education
publisherStr School of Education
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14621 Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences Langa, Patrício Vitorino Muller, Johan Academic Networking Forms of engagement Higher education networks scholastic capital Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-252). Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of field and capital, this thesis examines the disciplinary differences in the social sciences concerning the possession of scientific capital and levels of engagement with academic and non-academic constituencies in three African universities, Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, Makerere University in Uganda and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Contrary to approaches that regard disciplinary fields as homogeneous epistemic and social spaces on the grounds of the principles of the stratification of scientific fields, this study investigates the relationship between the hierarchical position of selected discipline-clusters and the levels of engagement with both internal and external constituencies. The study reveals that levels of possession of scientific capital have a significant effect on the differentiation of the disciplinary fields, both within and across institutions, and on the levels of engagement with (internal) academic and (external) non-academic entities. The analysis shows that scientific capital does not determine the level and forms of engagement with different constituencies. However, the differences across discipline-clusters at institutional level reflect the engagement with academic rather than with non-academic constituencies. In other words, this means that the level of engagement varies more between different disciplines when the engagement is related to academic entities than is the case when non-academic entities are concerned. Therefore, engagement is not a major discriminator amongst institutions. Scientific capital is what gives academics prestige and symbolic capital to the institution. The significance of this is that academics from different discipline-clusters might have different experiences of engagement with different constituencies. I further conclude that the growing importance that the notion of engagement has for the university is, perhaps, too simple if it does not account for the complex and multifaceted characteristics of disciplinary and institutional fields. 2015-11-02T10:59:42Z 2015-11-02T10:59:42Z 2010 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14621 eng application/pdf School of Education Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Academic Networking
Forms of engagement
Higher education networks
scholastic capital
Langa, Patrício Vitorino
Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
title_full Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
title_fullStr Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
title_full_unstemmed Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
title_short Disciplines and engagement in African universities : a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
title_sort disciplines and engagement in african universities a study of the distribution of scientific capital and academic networking in social sciences
topic Academic Networking
Forms of engagement
Higher education networks
scholastic capital
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14621
work_keys_str_mv AT langapatriciovitorino disciplinesandengagementinafricanuniversitiesastudyofthedistributionofscientificcapitalandacademicnetworkinginsocialsciences