Diversity, double-talk and (mis)alignment: pedagogic moves for epistemological access

Abstract

In contemporary South Africa issues of class, race and language  intersect with issues around schooling and complicate access to tertiary education. This article is an enquiry-based reflection on the challenges of providing epistemological access to an entry-level English course for students enrolling for a Bachelor of Education. As English specialists, we grapple with how to teach a powerful global language in a multilingual context in ways that are sensitive to the identities of our diverse student body. The course under analysis seeks to address this by recruiting students’ diverse (linguistic) identities as a resource and placing them at the centre of the curriculum. We begin by discussing the politics of  knowledge selection, the interplay between curriculum and identity Cummins, 2000, 2003) and various other pedagogic strategies, such as Vygotskian ideas of mediation and scaffolding. Central to our analysis is Biggs’s notion of constructive alignment (1996, 2003). In our post-course reflection, we work dialectically with this notion, using it to identify tensions and inconsistencies in our practice while at the same time using our practice to critique and extend this notion. Ultimately we propose a  more nuanced, multidimensional model of alignment that we believe would be better suited for courses concerned with issues of access, power and diversity.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2009, 27(1): 77–92