Tokenism and Barriers to Genuine Learner Participation in School Governance in One Progressive South African Girls' High School

Autor/inn/en	Yu, Ke; Shay, Charissa
Titel	Tokenism and Barriers to Genuine Learner Participation in School Governance in One Progressive South African Girls' High School
Quelle	In: South African Journal of Education, 42 (2022) 4, Artikel 2115 (10 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Yu, Ke) ORCID (Shay, Charissa)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0256-0100
Schlagwörter	Females; Single Sex Schools; High School Students; Student Participation; Governance; Foreign Countries; Barriers; Tokenism; Student Attitudes; Parent Attitudes; Administrator Attitudes; South Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Weibliches Geschlecht; Single-sex schools; Single-sex classes; Single sex classes; Getrenntgeschlechtliche Erziehung; Schule; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Schülermitarbeit; Schülermitwirkung; Studentische Mitbestimmung; Education; Educational policy; Financing; Steuerung; Bildung; Erziehung; Bildungspolitik; Finanzierung; Ausland; Schülerverhalten; Elternverhalten; Südafrika; Süd-Afrika; Republik Südafrika; Südafrikanische Republik
Abstract	Borrowing the participation level typology from civic participation literature, in the study reported on here, we explored the level of learner participation in school governance in 1 girls' high school in South Africa. We demonstrate that despite the schools' self-claimed progressive stance, its learner participation still exhibits numerous nuanced examples of tokenism. Using a qualitative research design and purposive sampling, we collected data from interviews and observation to examine the possible causes for, as well as consequences of this tokenism. The findings indicate that adults' beliefs about minors' limited capacity remain a structural barrier to learners' genuine participation. This belief threatens the credibility and legitimacy of the Representative Council of Learners (RCL) and this threat to legitimacy, in turn, reinforces the structural beliefs that adults hold and thus perpetuates a cycle whereby genuine participation is compromised and token participation is entrenched. We conclude this article with recommendations to address, mitigate and transcend token participation. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Education Association of South Africa. University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of Resilience, Level 3, Groenkloof Student Centre, Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, George Storrar Road and Lleyds Street, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. Web site: http://www.sajournalofeducation.co.za/index.php/saje/index
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01