Exploring the Impact of the Academic Interactions and Social Relations of Graduate Black African Students on their Learning Experiences in Beijing

Current data on international student has not particularly examined the experiences of the international African students in China. Furthermore, faced with a situation where the researcher encountered challenges as a student in China; I self-located in exploring the experiences of the African student in adapting to a new social and academic environment. A phenomenological research framework using semi-structured interviews was used to explore the social and academic experiences of 12 African Graduate students from three Universities in Beijing, China. Participants identified Chinese language as a major challenge, reported limited interaction with Chinese lecturers and discriminatory treatments during classroom dynamics. Added to these, there is much preference given to students from western countries. The study concludes by discussing the implication for practice and emphasizes the importance of universities acknowledging the cultural background of each other and incorporating perspectives of all students in a particular class to enhance student life experiences.

Locating the Transrhetorical in Multilingual Writing

Students' lived lives and experiences are tools that they can use to learn and own their writing as they grow and become fluent writers. Theorists have described different ways that students draw from their first languages and culture to write in another language. This chapter showcases how two African students bring their culture of orality into the classroom and use it as a tool to understand, develop, and conquer their writing. The chapter gives examples of the students' narratives as they navigate their writing. As they write, they constantly dig into their culture through tools of translation in order to perform, inform, and transform their writing in English, a language that is different both linguistically and culturally from their own.

Epilogue

At the end of the first chapter (1.5), I noted that, since having moved to an African country, I have considered myself to have had a moral obligation to engage with its intellectual traditions when teaching and researching. I would have rightly felt guilt had I taught merely Western ethics to African students and contributed only Euro-American-Australasian perspectives to journals published in the sub-Saharan region. Having been principally trained as an analytic moral and political philosopher, I have been in a good position to articulate normative-theoretic interpretations of African morality, to evaluate these moral theories by appealing to intuitions, and to apply them to a range of practical controversies. Now, it would be welcome if the relational moral theory I have defended in this book could explain why I had a duty to make such a contribution to the field. And indeed it does. I have had an obligation of some weight to teach and research African philosophical ideas as I am particularly able to do so for a reason that is by now familiar to the reader. In the way that a newly trained doctor has an obligation of some weight to give something back to his country before emigrating (...

Dimensions of Students’ Satisfaction with Residential Housing and its Impact on their Loyalty – A South African Study

As an important component of student lifestyle, satisfaction with residential housing has become important in examining student housing quality and services. The current study used five attributes – bedroom environment, building quality, washroom facilities, support services, and leisure room facilities – to examine the relationship between student satisfaction with and loyalty to their residential housing. Each construct was measured using four items on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ‘Strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘Strongly agree’. The data were collected from South African students aged 18 years and above in tertiary institutions in Johannesburg, using paper-based questionnaires. Four hundred and forty-three (443) usable questionnaires were obtained for the analysis. The results showed that all the attributes, except for the bedroom environment, had a positive and significant relationship with student loyalty to student housing, although the effect was small for all the attributes. The control variables – age and gender – showed a similar relationship in regards to student loyalty. Academic and management implications of this study’s results are also discussed extensively. Overall, students’ satisfaction with residential housing dimensions has a positive and significant impact on their loyalty to the providers of residential housing.

Navigating the Fourth Republic

Through the end of the Third Republic, only tiny numbers of West African students managed to study at France’s universities. Barriers to higher education began to fall after World War II, especially after African populations collectively gained citizenship. Higher education became a high-stakes policy area, as French officials and West African students and politicians vied to influence the parameters and possibilities of the postwar order. Amid escalating concerns about West African student migrations to the metropole, French officials eventually opened an Institute of Higher Studies in Dakar. However, this inchoate institution ended up highlighting the fundamental ambiguities of overseas citizenship. As West African students turned increasingly to anti-colonial activism, French authorities finally committed to establishing a full university in Dakar. Paradoxically, the construction and consolidation of this French university took place during the period of active decolonization.

Insights into the reversal error from a study with South African and Spanish prospective primary teachers

This study, using a quantitative approach, examined Spanish and South African pre-service teachers’ responses to translating word problems based on direct proportionality into equations. The participants were 79 South African and 211 Spanish prospective primary school teachers who were in their second year of a Bachelor of Education degree. The study’s general objective was to compare the students’ proficiency in expressing direct proportionality word problems as equations, with a particular focus on the extent of the reversal error among the students’ responses. Furthermore, the study sought to test the explanatory power of word order matching and the static comparison as causes of the reversal error in the two contexts. The study found that South African students had a higher proportion of correct responses across all the items. While nearly all the errors made by Spanish students were reversals, the South African group barely committed reversal errors. However, a subgroup of the South African students made errors consisting of equations that do not make sense in the situation, suggesting that they had poor foundational knowledge of the multiplicative comparison relation and did not understand the functioning of the algebraic language. The study also found that the word order matching strategy has some explanatory power for the reversal error in both contexts. However, the static comparison strategy offers explanatory power only in the Spanish context, suggesting that there may be a difference in curriculum and instructional approaches in the middle and secondary years of schooling, which is when equations are taught.

African female university students' experiences of online education at home during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of the study on which this paper is based was to explore how self-identified female African university students understand the influence of their home environments on their experiences of online education. The study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic when universities in South Africa and elsewhere introduced online teaching and learning. Using a qualitative approach to a single case study design within a critical feminist paradigm, we carried out an inductive thematic analysis of the data from seven in-depth, open-ended questionnaires and metaphors. We found that home environments play an important role in the education of female African students, particularly in a context characterised by gender inequalities exacerbated by inequities in material resources. However, a sense of agency, displayed by some participants, indicated their determination to rise above the many forms of marginalisation and discrimination they experienced.

Comparing Three Countries’ Higher Education Students’ Cyber Related Perceptions and Behaviours during COVID-19

In 2020, a global pandemic led to lockdowns, and subsequent social and business restrictions. These required overnight implementation of emergency measures to permit continued functioning of vital industries. Digital technologies and platforms made this switch feasible, but it also introduced several cyber related vulnerabilities, which students might not have known how to mitigate. For this study, the Global Cyber Security Index and the Cyber Risk literacy and education index were used to provide a cyber security context for each country. This research project—an international, cross-university, comparative, quantitative project—aimed to explore the risk attitudes and concerns, as well as protective behaviours adopted by, students at a South African, a Welsh and a Hungarian University, during the pandemic. This study’s findings align with the relative rankings of the Oliver Wyman Risk Literacy and Education Index for the countries in which the universities reside. This study revealed significant differences between the student behaviours of students within these universities. The most important differences were identified between students’ risk attitudes and concerns. It was also discovered that South African students reported having changed their protective online behaviours to the greatest extent, since the pandemic commenced. Recommendations are made suggesting that cyber security training and education, as well as improving the digital trust and confidence in digital platforms, are critical.

African Students’ Satisfaction in China: From the Perspectives of China-Africa Educational Cooperation

The number of African students in China has significantly increased in the last two decades. This trend is closely related to China's engagement with Africa in all aspects and insufficient provision of higher education in many African countries. This study examines the degree to which African students are satisfied with their study and life experiences at a Chinese university through a mixed-methods approach. The findings indicate that African students are generally satisfied with their experiences and the extent to their satisfaction in teaching dimensions is higher than that in administrative dimensions. However, teacher's English proficiency, interaction between faculty and students, internship opportunities, and administration service quality have lower levels of satisfaction that could be improved. In regard to factors affecting satisfaction, African students’ Chinese language proficiency level and the length of stay in China both influence their experiences. Additionally, the study discovers that self-funded students frequently have greater financial pressure and higher expectations for their study. The conclusion presents the research implications for enhancing the quality of Chinese higher education internationalization.