2011-NMMU-Research-Report - Research Management - Nelson ...

Music Education
Prof Aletta Delport
Prof Aletta Delport has research interests in music education,
arts education, identity and social and educational transformation
challenges. Her passion is researching social and educational
transformation, but most specifically: “inner transformation”. Her
attention has been captured by the value of music and the arts,
and how these contribute to social transformation. Additionally,
she also explores multicultural arts and music education, against
the backdrop of the historical domination of Eurocentric traditions.
At the core of her research is addressing the question: “How can
we stimulate inner transformation?” Here she uses her own
transformation journey as an Afrikaner who grew up in the heydays
of apartheid as a point of reference. She published for example a
paper entitled: Looking into the future with the past in mind and
this approach fuels her research efforts. Unlike René Descartes,
who formulated corgito ergo sum (I think therefore I am), Prof
Delport also interrogates how Afrikaans songs informed Afrikaner
identity during the apartheid years, arguing, canto ergo sum: I sing
therefore I am.
She therefore uses music education and the arts to foster and
facilitate aspects of being human. For example, one of her PhD
students explored the potential of music (hip hop), to help
adolescents to resolve their identity crisis. One of the papers she
read in 2011 reflected on pedagogy and how her own identity
was shaped by fundamental pedagogics. She spends a lot of time
researching and reflecting about the confluence of emotions,
social transformation and education, and recently published a
book, entitled: Emotions, Social Transformation and Education.
“As I continue to do what I am doing in
terms of research, I too will change, I
will grow,” she concludes.
She has been enabled to do her work because of the conducive
research and working climate that the Dean of the Faculty of
35
Education has fostered. She operates from the “paradigm of
disruption”, and positions herself in the “critical paradigm”. She
relishes the space given to question phenomena. She is a firm
believer in participatory research, but also acutely mindful not to
objectify the participants. Her conviction is that once we cultivate
humanity and humanness in people, transformation will ensue.
Prof Delport is enamoured with “generating data”, as opposed to
“gathering data”; inner driven as opposed to externally imposed
transformation, which tends to be long-lasting.
Going forward, Prof Delport will continue researching emotions,
social transformation and education.
At the core of her research is addressing
the question: “How can we stimulate
inner transformation?”
“As I continue to do what I am doing in terms of research, I too will
change, I will grow,” she concludes.
Science and Maths Literacy
Prof Paul Webb
Science and mathematics literacy are Prof Paul Webb’s research
areas. The fulcrum of his research is the use of science in society,
teaching learners early in their educational journey the skill of
argumentation, and promoting science literacy at school level.
Teaching science and mathematics becomes a challenge to the
learners to whom English is not a first language. Challenges of
a second language rear its head. Learners already face a "three
language problem": the language of instruction, the home language,
and the challenge of bilingualism.
A further area under his probe is answering the question whether
there is education for sustainable development.