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Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape

Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.

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Main Author: Carstens, Carin
Other Authors: Badroodien, Azeem
Format: Thesis
Language:en_ZA
Published: Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University 2013
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access_status_str Open Access
author Carstens, Carin
author2 Badroodien, Azeem
author_browse Badroodien, Azeem
Carstens, Carin
author_facet Badroodien, Azeem
Carstens, Carin
author_sort Carstens, Carin
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv Stellenbosch University
description Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.
format Thesis
id oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/80048
institution Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
language en_ZA
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:45:08.467Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository
publishDate 2013
publishDateRange 2013
publishDateSort 2013
publisher Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
publisherStr Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
record_format dspace
source_str SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository
spelling oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/80048 Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape Carstens, Carin Badroodien, Azeem Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies. Theses -- Education Dissertations -- Education Dissertations -- Education policy studies Theses -- Education policy studies School environment -- South Africa -- Western Cape School discipline -- South Africa -- Western Cape Children with social disabilities -- Education -- South Africa -- Western Cape Behavior modification Education Policy Studies Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. Bibliography Internationally, contemporary youth struggle to make sense or meaning of their lives. That is so because they live in a world where they daily witness unsolvable problems of struggling economies, poverty, HIV, and religious and national conflict, and where they are generally treated with ambivalence and a threat to the existing social order. Youth also struggle because within the public imagination they exist on the fringe of society. Giroux (2012: 2) argues that youth are given few spaces where “they can recognise themselves outside of the needs, values, and desires preferred by the marketplace” and are mostly subjected to punitive and zero tolerance approaches when they behave in unacceptable ways. In South Africa presently, it is generally claimed that “discipline problems” amongst youth have become the most endemic problem in South African schools, with policy makers and educators daily complaining about the disciplinary problems within schools that affect how learners engage with learning. Equally, discipline as punitive coercion has been shown to be an unsuccessful educational method in dealing with youth (Porteus & Vally 1999). With the above schooling challenge in mind, this qualitative study explored the views of thirteen young learners at Avondale High School in the Western Cape on school discipline. Via semi-structured interviews, the youth were asked about their understandings of the rules, disciplinary structures, forms of authority and order at the school, how they interpreted the role of discipline, and how they thought this would influence the futures awaiting them. The goal of the study was to provide a multi-dimensional view of what youth regarded as discipline at one school, and to explore whether different learners adopted different meanings of ‘discipline’ according to the context of their individual lives. I show in the study - utilising the views of Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu - that school discipline needs to be thought of as more than punishment or structures of ordering per se if it is to play a productive role in the functioning of schools. Along with Yang (2009: 49) I suggest that only when schools recognise that discipline has multiple meanings and (limited) roles within their daily functioning, will the emancipatory and transformative possibilities of school discipline be unlocked. For that to happen, the voices and views of youth in schools have to be taken account of, and meaningful relationships developed between learners, educators, and school management. Masters 2013-02-18T11:24:38Z 2013-03-15T07:32:50Z 2013-02-18T11:24:38Z 2013-03-15T07:32:50Z 2013-03 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/80048 en_ZA Stellenbosch University 156 p. application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
spellingShingle Theses -- Education
Dissertations -- Education
Dissertations -- Education policy studies
Theses -- Education policy studies
School environment -- South Africa -- Western Cape
School discipline -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Children with social disabilities -- Education -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Behavior modification
Education Policy Studies
Carstens, Carin
Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title_full Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title_fullStr Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title_full_unstemmed Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title_short Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape
title_sort youth culture and discipline at a school in the western cape
topic Theses -- Education
Dissertations -- Education
Dissertations -- Education policy studies
Theses -- Education policy studies
School environment -- South Africa -- Western Cape
School discipline -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Children with social disabilities -- Education -- South Africa -- Western Cape
Behavior modification
Education Policy Studies
url http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/80048
work_keys_str_mv AT carstenscarin youthcultureanddisciplineataschoolinthewesterncape