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‘They’ve got loads of computers!’ An Ethnographic Study on the ways in which U.K. based students approached a collaborative ICT project visit to a South African township educational facility.

Peter Shukie PhD in Technology Enhanced Learning

Lancaster University

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Abstract The advent of technology and web-based communication has led to a clearer appreciation of McLuhan’s (1964) ‘global village’. This participatory action research project seeks to explore what happens when two distinct cultural groups come together in a collaborative learning project. The project involves a group of UK based Education Studies undergraduates on a visit to a South African township educational facility with the aim of developing a collaborative, distance learning project. The visit allowed the undergraduates to explore what possibilities there would be for future collaboration with adult and primary learners and teachers from the townships in creating shared space for learning and development. Operating from a position of ‘Popular Technology’ (Eubanks, 2011) we were concerned with recognising cultural difference, access and use of technology and approaches to pedagogy. Issues of ‘epistemic plurality’, empathy across contexts, questioning of generalised national characteristics and cultural blurring around issues of gender where evident in the ethnographic exploration.

Keywords: globalisation; Interculturality; critical theory; participatory action research; ethnography; Popular Technology;

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Introduction

This is a research project that explores the issues faced by a group of U.K.

undergraduate Education Studies students on a preliminary visit to a South

African township educational facility with the intention of designing a distance

learning project. The project was not pre-defined in terms of expectation,

other than that it allowed for a collaborative exchange between students and

teachers in the charitably funded educational facilities in a Cape Town (South

Africa) township and a group of U.K. undergraduates with an interest in

teacher training and the use of technology in education.

The project was designed in part as a realization that changing practices

brought about by technology, reflecting McLuhan’s ‘global village’ (1964),

seems manifested through an increasing imperative toward international,

rather than simply local or national, educational opportunities (Goodfellow &

Lamy, 2008; Mercado, Parboteeah & Zhao, 2004).

The U.K. students themselves would be considered ‘non- traditional’ in the

U.K. Higher Education environment, coming from a Higher Education in

Further Education (H.E. in F.E.) institution. The characteristics of H.E. in F.E.

students are considered fundamentally different to traditional university

students (King & Widdowson, 2012. p.4) being generally older, more likely to

live at home, have diverse entry criteria and from backgrounds with little or no

previous H.E. experience. The findings consider how empathetic links

between the U.K. students and the townships residents was perhaps greater

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than the links with the middle class, European charity leaders, helping reveal

the complexity of culturality within, as well as across, national boundaries.

What had inspired the project was a desire to use technology-based

applications to create a collaborative learning environment in which the

teachers and students in the township could liaise, share teaching and

learning opportunities and enhance the experiences of both U.K. and Cape

Town cohorts. The ethos was built on a desire to explore how technology

could be used to share resources and practices across a geographical divide

while simultaneously exploring how to overcome the practicalities of a digital

divide. It was the assumption that we would be able to help with resources

that indicated some imbalance between the two organisations prior to the

visit. The U.K. students had held fund-raising events and purchased laptops

and mobile phones, along with books and in-class materials, prior to the

journey. There was little doubting that the charitable nature of the

organisation we liaised with, and the materials we had available to us on the

web, portrayed at least part of the visit as an interchange between two

differing economic contexts, as well as between separate cultures.

I considered a critical theoretical approach would allow us to develop the

project without succumbing to two areas of concern: ‘magical thinking’

(Eubanks, 2011. p.xv), that is, the ignoring of the duality of technology as a

promisor of growing wealth and inclusion while in actuality delivering

structures and procedures that create widening inequality (p.xvi); the

recognition of a concern with ‘the neoliberal project of globalization’ (Zajda,

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2010. p.16) in which education becomes intertwined with economic and

political ideologies that favour hegemonic appreciation of the free-market that

marginalizes local culture, context and ideals in preference for a ‘knowledge

as capital’ (p.18) model.

The research identifies two key themes: Pedagogy, and general concerns of

teaching and learning; Technology, and how the U.K. respondents reacted to

the township access and use. Both themes were clearly enveloped by issues

of inter-culturality and these are reflected in the questions and the subsequent

findings.

Context of the research

The township that hosted the visit is home to 32000 people, largely Xhosa

speaking and with strong associations with the Eastern Cape region of South

Africa. The township is made up of temporary houses alongside fewer

standard built government dwellings. The population is predominantly young,

with elderly members of the community relocating back to the poor areas of

the Eastern Cape. The township is typical of the temporary, informal

communities in being seen as a place for work and opportunity due to its

proximity to the city itself (Jürgen & Donaldson, 2012).

The townships highlight the contradictions inherent within many countries but

perhaps exacerbated in South Africa as they relate to the legacy of apartheid.

The Cape Town area is an area of economic growth and significant wealth

(2011 Census results, SAGI, 2012) yet has large areas of poverty and socio-

economic disadvantage. Although not sufficient space here to describe the

political, social and economic complexities that characterise the townships, it

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is significant that the inhabitants are largely marginalised and open to the

worst excesses of the divisions of wealth across South Africa.

Jürgen & Donaldson’s (2012) recent study concluded that despite the shift

from apartheid to democracy the townships are developing amidst, ‘…a re-

emergence of draconian legislation and major societal challenges in the fields

of health, education and housing’ (Jürgens & Donaldson, 2012. p.159).

The charity we worked with have funded a community library, invested in the

primary school, support early years provision and offered college bursaries

and adult education. The primary funding is through U.K. and U.S. charitable

organisations and education is delivered by a mixture of local, township

teachers and overseas project workers/ volunteers. Most delivery is in either

Xhosa or English, although on the visit we saw only English speaking and

materials in the classrooms.

The recent 2011 census offered some indications of a shifting environment as

they highlighted that 89% of the South African population had cell phones,

while household internet access was at 35.2% and most of this accessed

through mobile technology (2011 Census results, SAGI, 2012).

The project worker who guided us on our visit indicated that cell phone usage

in the township was relatively high amongst adults and that all the teachers

had access to a mobile. The School and Library had internet access and

computer suite access, which we considered the potential hub for the

proposed projects.

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Aims and Objectives

The research focuses on the ways the U.K. students perceived the cultural

implications of designing a learning project with the township school students

and teachers. The two questions asked where:

1. To what extent did the visit to the township reveal differences, similarities and potential areas for collaboration in relation to technology?

2. In what ways did pedagogical approaches, practical and theoretical, appear in the respondents approaches to the collaborative project?

Methodology

In considering the ways that the U.K. students approached the collaboration

project the choice of naturalistic, ethnographic research offered a form of

enquiry that allowed the students’ diverse perspectives to emerge. Operating

from a non-dualist ontological position the central concern was with moving

away from any notion of a pre-existent set of conditions and to reveal the

meaning generated in actual interactions.

An Action Research model allows for a development of critical theory in a

participatory approach to affecting some form of change (McNiff & Whitehead,

2011. p.46). Recognising McNiff and Whiteheads’ (2011) ideal that, ‘action

researchers do not do research on others, but do it on themselves in the

company of others’ (p.36) it was significant that all of us were experiencing

the visit to the township for the first time and all participants would be involved

in the development of the projects at a later date. In a practical sense this

meant that participation and collaboration in the research was central to how it

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would be conducted. Ontologically, support for this view stemmed from the

idea that our shared experiences and actions were interlinked and the

meanings and activities that followed were bound by our relationships. It

would be impossible in this approach to adopt a position outside the research.

In criticising some forms of action research, McNiff & Whitehead (2011)

believes seeing others as elements to be researched ‘on’ rather than ‘with’,

‘…reinforces a view of aristocrats and servants, and asymmetrical

relationships of power’ (McNiff & Whitehead, 2011. p.48).

Here, there was a real possibility that the participants would develop views

that did not necessarily tally with shared concepts of power. Much of the

preliminary discussion and materials sent to us from the townships suggested

familiar (to a western audience) concepts of African poverty responded to with

charity. The theoretical approach of ‘Popular Technology’ (Eubanks, 2011)

presents a similar danger of ‘epistemological privilege’ (Eubanks, 2011.

p.148) becoming ‘epistemological superiority’ (p.148). This suggests that,

‘”Voice” is too often forced into political scripts that demand poor and working class…speak only as public witnesses to their own deficiency or debasement…not as active agents in their own complex lives’ (Eubanks, 2011. p.148).

The ethnographic, participatory action research prioritises participant

lived experiences in order to reveal any friction, empathy or related

interaction based on personal experience and not from any concepts

of superiority inherent in the research process. Eubanks (2011)

proposes ‘epistemic plurality’ (p.151) as a means of ensuring a

democratic collection of views. This is aligned with Cohen, Manion &

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Morrison’s (2011) contention that, ‘…there is no single picture of the

world. Rather, there are many worlds and many ways of

investigating them’ (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011. p.219) to

centre the students’ involvement as involved participant respondents

in the research.

The research puts emphasis on individual journals written by the students

before, during and after the visit. Focus groups were used that included the

students and myself, and also in consultation with the charity project staff in

the township itself. In the latter groups, the discussions were naturally

occurring as part of the visits and were recorded on audio. Informal

discussion was recorded on the visit, allowing for spontaneity in reaction.

Data Analysis

The application of epistemic plurality allowed for a position of equity in what

was included in the data analysis. McNiff & Whitehead (2009) suggest that

establishing criteria is crucial to creating meaningful findings and this research

used criteria related directly to each of the questions; technology, pedagogy;

cultural concerns; difference; collaborative possibilities/ issues.

The journals were read through and thematic analysis was initially employed

to find comments that related to technology and/or pedagogy. These were

sought and aligned based on their similarities to each other following my own

interpretation and in relation to the themes found in the literature.

The comments from my own journal and notes taken during the visit, including

photographs and audio recorded focus groups, were also analysed. The aim

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was always to make the journals the primary data source yet it was clear that

some immediacy from the focus groups and the notes taken during the visit

were equally illuminating and compelling.

It was important that the data was open to some additional critical analysis

and the data themes were discussed with staff also present on the visit to

gauge their responses and see if the themes tallied with their own

observations. In addition, a focus group on return to the U.K. allowed me to

go through the themes collected and discuss with the respondents whether

they found these to be reflective of their experiences, making amendments in

consultation.

Although there were mixed genders, ages and ethnicities in the group the

initial aim was to give lettered identifiers (Student A) without any further detail

as these variables were not part of the research focus. However, I later

added gender to relate some of the gendered discussion that became

apparent and which impacted on cultural values as related to pedagogy and

technology.

The overall aim was to help reveal the students’ voice as much as possible

and to allow the research to reflect what was experienced as the respondents

described it. The journals, focus groups and on-site interviews allowed this to

occur and to be considered alongside each other for purposes of triangulation.

Critical Theory

Globalisation often presents a view of, ‘…relentless imposition of Western

values…the new colonisers insensitively spreading their own views of the

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world on to developing nations in the mistaken belief they are helping people’

(Mason, 1998. p.10).

In response the project was based on a critical theoretical approach and

hoped to reflect concepts of ‘Popular Technology’ (Eubanks, 2011. p.99). The

emphasis on ethnographic, participatory and emancipatory research practices

follows from this concern with a critical theoretical perspective that prioritises

the marginalised, and does not limit concerns with policy makers and

established procedures in hierarchical systems. Eubanks defines Popular

Technology as, ‘..meeting people ‘where they’re at’ and creating spaces for

meaningful exchange born of mutual respect…based on broadly participatory,

democratic methods of knowledge generation’ Eubanks, 2011. p.104).

Eubank’s cites Horton’s (1972) contention that ‘Education is too important to

be left in the hands of institutions and experts’ (Eubanks, 12011. P.105) and

by reflecting on experiences and developments proposed by the students

here it was hoped that an approach that realising this input as significant and

powerful would allow for consistency between theoretical approach, the data

collected and the goals of the project. In essence, this background

recognises that participatory action research, ‘…puts people traditionally

thought of as ‘research subjects’ in charge of investigating and transforming

their own world’. (p.106).

Literature Review

This review aims to establish the technological nature of globalisation and

reflect the relevance of educational change in response to it. Taking Zondiros’

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(2008) notions of ‘globalisation from above’ and ’globalisation from below’

(Zondiros, 2008) the review explores how increasing use of technology

reflects social inequalities and division. Rather than an acceptance of

technology as a benign mode of delivery the accent is on how imbalance and

inequality can emerge from the ways technology and pedagogy are

combined.

Significance of technology

The literature surrounding globalisation and its close relationship to web-

based communication technologies creates a discourse in which the two are

often inter-twined (Mason, 1998; Zondiros, 2008). Recognition of the cross-

cultural implications of online learning are increasingly prevalent in

pedagogical decision making (Goodfellow & Lamy, 2009; Belisle, 2008, Collis,

1999) and there seems little doubt that, ‘…global education is a phenomenon

to be reckoned with’ (Mason, 1999. p. 3).

Increasing concerns with internationalization in some sectors of education

have led to some description of a ‘Changing World’ (Hyland, Trahar,

Anderson & Dickens, 2008.) in U.K. Higher Education in which

internationalisation, cultural difference and globalisation are essential features

of H.E. provision.

Globalisation from above and below

Zondiros (2008) position suggests that the formation of a globalised planet

occurs between two forces; from above through the corporate influence of the

globalised, economic superpowers; and, from below as individuals with

access to increased communication routes, ‘…produce and spread their own

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information, cultural forms and engage in dialogue.’ (Zondiros, 2008). A

critical perspective, such as Popular Technology (Eubanks, 2011) presents

such duality as one of tension between these two forces, claiming that,

‘technology is not a destiny, but a site of struggle’ (p.155).

In the South African context the response of the globalised educational

infrastructure appears well defined by the emergence of the online University

of South Africa (UNISA) that aims to, ‘…harness the new and emerging

potential in information and communication technology to catapult the

university into a truly digital future’ (UNISA, 2012). This seemingly embracing

approach to technology and education mirrors Zondiros’ (2008) reflection on

globalisation’s generally positive inclusion in university mission statements.

Zondiros highlights how positive rhetoric often camouflages less positive

aspects of cost and accessibility that globalised economies bring, with

particular consideration on South Africa’s online provision largely attracting a

restrictive demographic of mature, male students.

More specifically here, the teacher training department at UNISA requires the

students to work in either Afrikaans or English. That both these languages

are minority languages in South Africa (2011 Census results, SAGI, 2012)

indicates the complexity of internal national cultures. The selection of English

as the teaching language reflected a duality of globalised tendencies and the

practical influence of the nationality of the charity funders. A subsequent

marginalisation of Xhosa as language of development was thus apparent if

largely unintended.

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In recognising that defining culture in any singular description is, ‘simply too

complex to do justice in a single definition’ (Goodfellow & Lamy, 2008. p.1)

the emergence of national characteristic models (Hofstede, 1986) suggests a

dangerous tendency to look for standardisation that eases the burden of the

course designer rather than reaches the needs of the user.

Researching the South African context it was clear that even within a few

geographical miles concepts of educational culture were vastly different.

Chetty & Lubben (2010) considered that the concerns of a developing

university in Cape Town were as much defined by its place in a global,

academic infrastructure than by any responses to a localised, South African

context. The issue of research and teacher training became defined not by

the needs of the immediate South African environment, but in a realisation

that, ‘…the business of higher education is no more just the concern of nation

states but also occupies a global space’. (Chetty & Lubben, 2010). The

complexity of seeking to work in an environment with students/ teachers from

multiple nationalities is then necessarily mediated by another, global and

ubiquitous, culture.

Further blurring comes in the contrast between UNISAs vision and the United

Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO, 2001) description in

which, ‘…Sub-Saharan Africa is largely left out of the loop of the emerging

global ‘knowledge’ economy and informational society of the 21st Century.’

(UNIDO, 2001. p.iv). An emphasis on globalisation from below at least allows

for collaborative, consultative process and creates potential to avoid the

reductive vision exposed by Eubanks, where,

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‘Much current high-tech equity policy and scholarship

dismisses the resources of poor and working people.

Either mourning them as inevitable victims of progress or

seeking to retool them to fit into the new economy’.

(Eubanks, 2011. p.154).

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Findings

The findings are presented in two separate sections representing the focus of

the research questions. The significant responses are presented as sub-

headed sections and include illustrated discussion from the data collected.

1. Students’ responses based on technology and inter-culturality

Empathy with the township residents

The first meeting with the head of the charity began with an introduction in

which the township lifestyle was outlined, the description being, ‘township life

is often described as sitting, sitting and waiting’ (English Head of Charity).

The response from the group indicated that they too had been subject to

similar description during periods of unemployment and that, ‘the BBC

documentary said things like that about our estate’ (Student M, male). The

implication was that some of the students felt a greater affinity with the

township residents than they did with the middle-class, well-spoken, English

charity leader. In later discussion several students related to how the leaders

of the charity, while being inspirational in their actions, were noticeably ‘all

very posh and all white’ (student M, male). Journal entries related to how the

students recognised the difficulties in accessing computers too, with three out

of ten students suggesting they struggled for access, reliant on community

provision in their own library and were, ‘…linking my experience to here,

although it is different in terms of background I do know what it is like having

to wait for someone else to leave to get on a computer’ (Student H, female).

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Although economically divergent, the shared experiences of marginalisation

meant that concepts of limited access were not a site of universal difference.

“They’ve got loads of computers!”

The exclamation mark concluding that sentence only partly conveys the

surprise that the U.K. students demonstrated when we were shown a

computer suite in the primary school, and a similar resource in the community

library. This living experience was the most telling point of the visit in some

ways, and in journal entries this was placed within two concepts. Firstly, the

perception of low/ no technology was immediately evident; ‘I knew they had

some computers, but I thought they’d be 1996 things with floppy disc drives.

When I saw the computer suite I was amazed. It seemed a bit stupid us

carrying those laptops all this way’ (Student M, male).

From another perspective, it seemed the contradiction of poverty and

technology surprised some, ‘…a hundred feet away we saw the men throwing

human waste into an open sewer and them just in here, all this, just the same

as at Uni’. (Student M, female).

From the teaching and learning angle of the project this juxtaposition of

students’ conceptions of what ‘township’ meant, and who lived there, was

then clearly placed in relation to existing states of access to technology. It

altered the nature of follow up focus groups and in the journals the project

designs being discussed became inclusive of a whole range of software and

application use. In essence, the students aligned accessibility with ability.

The Project Manager had described how the computer suites were under-

utilised because no staff had the skills to design developed use of the

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resources. This did not feature so strongly in any journal entries and would

be something that needed adding to the follow-up project meetings to remind

students of the issues that remained inherent, despite access to the

technology.

2. Pedagogical reflections based on Interculturality

Social constructivism and localised cultural difference

In the focus group on the first visit with the American Project Manager she

had described how the Xhosa teachers and students were not active in

questioning and suggesting alternatives to problems the teacher provided.

This was described as a cultural reluctance to ask questions of authority and,

‘…generally, they won’t ask questions as questioning people is seen as rude,

something you just don’t do’ (American Charity Project Manager). The

resonance of this was felt across all the students’ journals (although

interestingly, it went unremarked in the focus group – perhaps there was a

cultural reluctance for the U.K. students to ask more of the Manager?). The

issues were largely related to the ways that their projects could develop in an

environment where the use of questioning as a tool for development was

removed. In answer, one student suggested this was, ‘…not an issue in

digital storytelling…they produce their stories, we produce ours, the questions

are internal then – they happen, but not in public’ (student D, male). As the

emphasis of the undergraduate programme was largely on social

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constructivist approaches to education it was expected that the projects would

follow a similar pedagogy. Ironically, the rationale for this pedagogy did stem

from an emancipatory approach. ‘We can encourage questioning and show

that this is the way to make changes’ (student H, female). The two

approaches here highlight one of recognising cultural values and working with

them, another of asking the community to change them and be ‘encouraged’

to change.

The ‘new colonisers’ and gender

The student observation of a computer session during the visit highlighted a

content issue when some African students were answering questions using

headphones and a keyboard response to complete a gap fill exercise. The

session was part of an English session and used a package on the desktop

that practiced English but was designed to represent Xhosa culture. This

included a section on gender roles that indicated the correct answers

replicated gendered roles of females cooking and not driving, while males

worked but did not do laundry. Regardless of earlier descriptions of Xhosa

culture, including male rites of passage and the importance of family roles, the

students involved in this observation considered it something, ‘…we can

change it, if they don’t know about gender equality, they can’t do things

differently. We can show them about working and how women have moved

on, how women can do anything men can do’ (Student U, female).

Similar discussion entered the focus group populated only by students

(without the Project Manager) with a sense of emancipation being driven by

familiar western concerns of gendered roles and equality.

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Although the cultural values were clearly at odds the situation was also more

complex and included gendered experiences that influenced the discussion.

It was only female students that mentioned this, in journals and in the focus

groups. The Project Manager had led an earlier focus group by saying that

three male members of staff in the school had been suspended for sexual

assault in the recent past. The sense of cultural difference was then viewed

in response to a description of a culture tolerant of sexual assault and the

lower status of women. Student U (female) described the situation as. ‘…not

going to change if women think that it is normal, when it isn’t normal, it’s

wrong and we can help by creating programmes that show what other people

do’ . It was a compelling argument in the focus groups and has continued on

return to the U.K. It highlights the contradiction of some elements of social

justice and emancipation that may seem universal yet remain as open to

cultural difference as the less emotive notions of pedagogical choice.

Regardless of the strength of feeling that ensued, the reflection of Mason’s

(1998, p.10) ‘new colonisers’ spreading their own versions of reality created

tension here that was more challenging than notions of cultural sensitivity. It

asked a fundamental question about the possibilities of educators being able

to transfer their ideals, cultures and beliefs into another context

unproblematically. It asked the question of how education can ever be

neutral, and the roles of teachers and learners ever been removed from

positions of power, authority and established cultural appreciation.

Reflection

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The project was a fascinating experience and one that supported views of a

complex set of considerations when planning any project between people

across cultural divisions. Our aim had been to align most closely with

Zondiros’ (2008) distinction of ‘globalisation from below’. Being aware of the

difference and the inequality of conditions between the two groups meant that

some element of power/ control and inequality would be inevitable. Despite

this, it was hoped that recognising the values of each culture and the potential

for a reduced time/ geography consideration through the use of technology

would allow for a positive and enriching learning experience.

This still remains the focus, the students left Cape Town feeling positive and

determined to generate projects that would allow students and teacher

interaction in the townships. The questions of how well any educational

aspect can be shared across such immense cultural divide remains to be

seen. What does seem evident is that only by ensuring that personal

consideration and experience, acceptance of difference and collaboration

based on respect can meaningful and emancipatory results occur.

Conclusion

The project allowed for a meaningful exchange between two groups who, in

their respective ways, could be considered marginalised. It was significant

that when they were allowed to interact the possibilities for future progression

took shape and the ethos of the projects started to grow. Benefits of a

participatory approach to research are clear in the opportunities thus created

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by opening up the flow of communication between groups otherwise

dependent on better funded, and connected institutional pathways. That

these funded institutions are more likely to seek standardised approaches and

generalizable outcomes and teaching practices is significant. The concern is

that opportunities like this project are infrequent and the potential for cultural

exchange is likely to remain in the control of the globalisers, ‘from above’.

The dangers of homogeneity and cultural insensitivity that can stem from

large scale, global concerns insists on a responsive and pro-active utilisation

of technology’s potential to connect people and respond to their localised

identities.

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