Ensuring Meaningful Access to Powerful Knowledge to Enable Success of Students from Rural Areas in the Field of Science in Higher Education: A Decolonial Perspective

Abstract

The dominant discourse in higher education which rather simplistically equates hard work with success, serves to privilege the already privileged, with their background in particular forms of knowledge and learning. The assumption that success in higher education could largely be explained through meritocracy based on hard work and bright minds only favors middle class students, globally, because of their privilege. This is because students’ enrollment in universities is linked to benefitting from powerful knowledge, but this is likely to be merged with the acquisition of the knowledge of the powerful, the middle and upper classes. Consequently, students from lower class backgrounds are unlikely to draw on knowledge resources that they bring with them to university. Through empirical qualitative data drawn from discussions of 2nd year science students at a historically white and privileged university, I argue that knowledges outside of the academy, for example, in rural homes could be used as a pathway to access powerful knowledge. I draw on the theoretical lenses of critical realism and social realism to develop an understanding of students’ prior experiences. A decolonial gaze is adopted to critique how university space, physical, ideological, and intellectual, could constrain access to powerful knowledge.

1. Introduction

Powerful knowledge is abstracted from immediate context and helps us to understand the world, to solve problems and to imagine things not yet in existence [1]. However, accessing powerful knowledge is sometimes conflated with accessing the knowledge of the powerful with the result that success of marginalized students, including those from rural areas is likely to be compromised, and thus, maintain the status quo. Knowledge of the powerful is the knowledge that constitutes the interests of the powerful and ignores those of the marginalized. In that way, curriculum is likely to be ideologically designed to protect the interest of the powerful and/or the privilege and so, theories about the world are explained from their perspective [1]. What counts as academic knowledge and its production is thus decided by the powerful.

Crucially, [1] Boughey and Mckenna (2021) question who gets admitted into the academy and who flourishes within it. Based on [1] Boughey and Mckenna’s conceptions of the knowledge of the powerful, it is possible to see that universities are set up to favor one social group over others, typically the children of middle class educated caregivers, often white [2] because they occupy powerful positions in society. Consequently, marginalized students or non-traditional students, those who are first generation to enter the gates of university, because of unequal social structure, seldom, if at all draws on knowledge resources and practices that they bring with them to university since they find them unrecognized and/or unrewarded [3].

It is possible to see how the idea of privilege plays out in higher education. In relation to this point, [1] Boughey and Mckenna (2021) for example, presents a scenario of students’ performance data. They argue that students’ performance data shows the same persistent patterns year on year, that is, regardless of the university, subject area or the program, black students do less well than white peers. These authors continue to argue that the only way to account for this is to draw on ‘a model of a student as a social being’ and show how universities are set up to favor one social group over others. From this understanding, it is possible to see that education works to reproduce society not transform it as it is. It is in this area where this chapter is situated, that is, making a proposal for the need to reconceptualize the problems of skewed educational outcomes that favor the already privileged, and this is true in the field of science at the research site [4, 5]. It is based on this brief discussion that I argue that it is imperative to understand the model of the student as a social being in higher education, even in the field of science, as it could provide us with more nuanced, more complex and more credible explanations regarding students’ success and failure in higher education, than simple understandings that are based on the construct of meritocracy [6].

To realize this imperative, I draw on critical realism as a theory of reality and how reality is known. Through the tenets of critical realism and social realism, I am hoping to show that it is possible to bring the relativism of human experience into the objective world of science, thus, provide more complex and credible explanations regarding students’ success and/or failure [6].

I also draw on decolonial theory as an explanatory framework to help us understand why students from marginalized backgrounds, including those from rural areas are unable to draw on knowledge resources that they bring with them in knowledge generation in science classrooms. Rural areas in South Africa are characterized by poor infrastructure and students from these areas usually fall in lower class backgrounds, thanks to institutionalized segregation policies of apartheid regime in South Africa.

Methodologically I draw on approaches that are qualitative in nature, for example, Action Research.

A decolonial gaze is presented and argued for to critique how university space, physical, ideological, and intellectual, could constrain access to powerful knowledge of science and thus constrain success. In the process, I am hoping to make a case for the recognition and reward for forms of rural originated knowledge and knowledge practices which seems to be currently ignored in higher education.

Data that forms part of the analysis in this chapter was drawn from 24 2nd year science students from a historically white and research-intensive university in South Africa, in the field of science. The data is based on focus group discussions. The question driving this chapter is, thus, What practices shape the learning habits of second year science students from rural backgrounds at a South African University to enable access to powerful knowledge?

I conclude this chapter by suggesting new ways of reconceptualizing problems of skewed educational success in the field of science in higher education – a conceptualization which questions the common sense understanding of students’ failure or success which is in the idea that students must have the right attributes and be motivated enough to succeed [7, 6], an idea which absolves university space as profoundly historical, social, political and cultural. What we need is a realization that students’ success or failure cannot just be explained on the basis of meritocracy but through a social theory to understand a myriad of factors, which are likely to be social, to enable success or failure to access powerful knowledge in higher education. This chapter is thus a continuation to a contribution that has been made by [1, 5] on the limitations of meritocratic explanations on students’ success and failure in higher education. But my focus is on the most marginalized students in higher education, students from rural areas in South Africa, often black.

This chapter thus aims to do two things:

To present an argument that knowledges or knowledge forms outside of the academy, for example, in rural homes could be used as a pathway to access powerful, principled or abstract knowledge of science that enables access and success, and thus maintain lifelong learning.

To engage with structural inequalities that have conditioned, though not deterministically, life chances of students from the marginalized background in South Africa, backgrounds which have profound implications for epistemic access, success or failure.

2. Structural inequalities shaping what we can and cannot do

People engage in different positions in the social world. This engagement may take place either through voluntary or involuntary positioning or even through birth, and consequently, infuse people with certain powers or lack thereof [8]. Peoples’ life chances are thus structured in certain ways because of these positions. Accordingly, people are born into contexts of advantage or disadvantage. Crucially, linked to positions are certain material resources and therefore vested interests. There is thus a tendency that people occupying the positions may wish to maintain their positions and interests or may wish to improve their situation in life. Social group and the positions that people occupy could thus be interpreted as a structure that leads to events, observations and experiences, explicated in the following sections through the tenets of critical realism and social realism.

When it comes to education in general and/or higher education in particular, the life chances that are conditioned by the positions that people occupy in society tend to impact on who get access to the academy and who flourishes within it [1]. In relation to this point [1] have observed the tendency of universities to privilege the already privileged in international higher education landscape. According to [1] the available statistics on the issue of privileging the privileged in various counties demonstrate that socio-economic factors play a significant role in effecting students’ success. Based on this understanding, it is possible to see that accounts of success or failure that are based on meritocracy cannot be adequate.

The interplay between class, race and geographical location is likely to be experienced differently by students who have been historically and structurally conditioned into positions of advantage and/or disadvantage. To better understand these positions and their impact on students’ success and/or failure in the higher education context in South Africa, particularly in the field of science, [9, 10] Bhaskar’s (1978, 1979) critical realism and Archer’s [11, 12, 13] (1995, 1996, 1998) social realism have been adopted as useful means to understand events and experiences related to higher education in South Africa and identifying the structures and mechanisms from which those events and experiences emerge.

3. Critical realism and social realism

3.1 Critical realism

The preceding sections have shown how inadequate meritocratic explanations could be in explaining students’ success and/or failure in higher education. Using Roy Bhaskar’s [9, 10] (1978, 1979) critical realism and Margaret Archer’s [8, 11, 12, 13] (1995, 1996, 1998, 2000) social realism is hoped to provide us with insights that we could use in an exploration of a social account of learning that foregrounds the agency of students as social beings, in the process consider the intersection of such agency with social structures. I now turn to the theory and to the work of Bhaskar and Archer and discuss some events that challenge common sense understanding that those students who work hard and have the right attributes will do well in higher education. I am not in any way suggesting that the right attributes and working hard are not necessary for success, but these cannot be enough, hence, a need for complex and rigorous explanations.

What we really need to consider as we plan a piece of research is the nature of ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ itself. This ‘truth’ is sometimes located in positivist paradigms or is quantitative in nature. Quantitative approaches to research usually use observations, measurements and experiments as a way of knowing. The role of researchers adopting this approach is to ‘discover’ or ‘uncover’ the truth or reality by embracing an objective stance to ensure that they do not ‘contaminate’ or affect what it is they are trying to see and, thus, know. They assume that an absolute reality or truth’ exists, out there, independently of human thought and existence.

Alternatively, qualitative research is in interpretivist paradigms as it often seeks to collect people’s opinions or beliefs in relation to a phenomenon, using questionnaires or interviews. In this type of research observations can be included in the form of close descriptions. The challenge with this type of research is that data analysis is mainly based on respondents’ interpretation of their interpretations – as a researcher you interpret what has already been interpreted by respondents on a particular phenomenon and so, you end up having multiple truths or realities. As a researcher, what do you do with these multiple realities – is a question that critical realism provides an answer to, as I hope to show?

Clearly, both approaches are based on very different assumptions about reality itself and how we can come to know it.

It is for these observations that Bhaskar’s [9, 10] critical realism was chosen in this chapter as it allows us to see beyond the limitations of both positivism, which is realist in the sense that it acknowledges a reality independent of human activity and relativism with its acknowledgement of multiple realities. To do this, critical realism posits ‘layered’ or ‘stratified’ reality.

In critical realist terms, the first layer of this reality is termed the ‘Empirical’ which is the layer of experiences and observations made through the senses. Experiences and observations are acknowledged to be multiple in that they are constructed based on our past histories, as such, are understood to be relative. The second layer, the ‘Actual’, is the layer of events out of which experiences and observations emerge. To this end, both ‘Empirical’ and ‘Actual’ domains or levels of stratified reality constitute the world we are familiar with, based on our daily experiences. From this understanding, it is possible to recognize the relativity of knowing that is shaped by a myriad of human experience. However, Bhaskar goes beyond this in his identification of a final layer of reality, termed the ‘Real’, that is understood as an intransitive, unchanging world consisting of structures and mechanisms from which the other two layers emerge.

In critical realism, the term ‘structures’ is used to refer to social structures, such as gender, education, language, curriculum and so on that regulate access to material resources. For example, the curriculum can be understood as a structure that regulates access to knowing and to knowledge and, in doing so, it does not treat all equally [1], given the structural positions discussed above, as will be shown later in the findings section. Amongst other things, the term ‘mechanisms’ can be used to refer to discourses or sets of ideas contained in language and other sign systems that constrain the way we think and, thus, act.

The interplay of structures and mechanisms at the layer of the ‘Real’ allow for the emergence of events at the level of the ‘Actual’ and experiences and observations at the level of the ‘Empirical’. The interplay of structures and mechanisms which are operative at the level of the ‘Real’ allow the emergence of events at the level of the ‘Actual’ (what people do, can do or cannot do). A person from a different social group may never have suffered deprivation of access to material resources or access to mainstream discourses valued in formal higher education, sch as an ability to make an argument or reading a textbook, with the result that they are likely to function well at university than others who come from different conditions.

If a person has been raised in a home where arguments and explanations are encouraged and privileged, then it is possible that the lecture or literacy practices that require explanations and making an argument (these are valued in science knowing) could experience the lecture differently to another person who had experienced an upbringing where these literacy practices were not similar to those valued in science (though they may exist in a form different from that of formal higher education), as shown in Table 1 below.

Empirical (Experiences and observations)	Experiences of students from rural areas in science classrooms emerging from observations. Stories based on the world students are familiar with, that is, rural home daily practices. These were garnered through focus group discussions.
Actual (Events)	Practices emerging from rural home socialization; practices emerging or acquired from higher education; both rural, mainly from lower class backgrounds, students and middle-class students have a tendency to draw on different practices in navigating university space, academically, socially and ideologically and these are likely to be shaped by home socialization.
Real (Intransitive, unchanging world consisting of structures and mechanisms from which the layers of the ‘Empirical’ and the ‘Actual’ emerge).; The interplay of the structures and mechanisms is tendential to the emergence of the events in the ‘Actual’ domain. These structures are comprised of generative mechanisms that can be actualized by agents or can remain dormant. Archer’s theoretical lens allowed me to investigate the Structural Emergent Properties (SEPs), Cultural Emergent Properties (CEPs) and Personal Emergent Properties (PEPs) leading to the events at the level of the ‘Actual’ and experiences at the level of the ‘Empirical’. These may involve social class; education system (curriculum); location; Discourses; beliefs, values and practices, shaping what students can do or cannot do as they engage with their science lectures.
Structural Emergent Properties	Cultural Emergent Properties	Agential Emergent Properties

Table 1.

Significance of CR and SR analytical framework, adapted from [14].

Key to Bhaskar’s thinking is the notion of emergence as shown in Table 1. For example, the ability to read or not read or make an argument may or may not emerge, because of the interaction of structures and mechanisms at the level of the ‘Real’. This means that structures and mechanisms have causal powers, but these are not strictly causal. Causal explanations are simplistic in that they absolve a myriad of factors that could be at play to account for a particular event or experience. What we need instead of a neat causal system, in which X causes Y, and therefore if we incentivize X we will achieve Y, or in the case under investigation, if students are motivated enough, intelligent enough then they will succeed, is to visualize a complex system in which changing any one part will influence all the others [1].

So, the emergence or non-emergence of experiences is related on the interplay and interaction of the class, geography, economy, education system and so on, with other mechanisms and structures. In critical realist research, we are therefore looking at the tendency of a structure or mechanism to make something emerge. In this chapter we thus look at why students from rural areas and often black experience the science curriculum the way they do and how this tends to constrain access to powerful knowledge and thus, unfavorable educational outcomes, as opposed to their city dwellers, middle class and often white peers from educated homes.

An ontological frame of critical realism, thus, helps us realize the stratified nature of reality and the relative manner of our experiences emerging from the reality that is intransitive [9, 10] – inaccessible directly but which nonetheless consists of structures and mechanisms that are ‘real’ in the sense that they exist regardless of whether or not we even know about them or acknowledge them.

3.2 Archer’s social realism

The value of Archer’s [8, 11, 12, 13] (1995, 1996, 1998, 2000) work is that it allows us to look more closely at the level of the ‘Real’ and to look at the interplay of structures and mechanisms at the level of the ‘Real’ over time.

Archer uses the concept of ‘analytical dualism’ to help us look at this interplay closely. She refers to social structures as ‘the parts’ and includes culture as a ‘part’. Material goods are accessible through social structures such as education. If a person is educated, for example, is likely to get a good job that will enable them to climb a social ladder and earn a good salary that will help them access material goods like education. Furthermore, this person is likely to develop new relationships because of their new educational status and will most likely spend their time with other educated persons. The phrase ‘likely’ suggest that such new relationships are not simply a matter of cause and effect as someone ‘uneducated’ formally does not signify that they have not learned at all during their lives [1] or cannot develop relationships with ‘educated persons’.

The term ‘culture’ is defined in numerous ways, for example, it can be defined using the concept of discourse. A discourse is a set of ideas, beliefs, values, concepts and theories that are loosely bound together. From a critical realist perspective, discourses are mechanisms at the level of the ‘Real’ that enable and constrain the emergence of events and experiences. For example, in many countries of the world, a discourse of ‘widening participation’ can be discerned. Amongst other things, this discourse argues that higher education is not for the elite and that the universities must open their doors to students from a range of socio-economic backgrounds. The existence of this discourse then leads to events such as new ways of enabling physical access into universities leading to various experiences and observations. The idea of widening participation, for example, is accepted by some on the basis that higher education can no longer be seen as only or mainly enrolling students who are assumed to be intellectually fit for the university, without considering a myriad of factors at play, and this aspect is particularly important in relation to the focus of this chapter. Others oppose the idea of widening participation because the university is structured to enroll intellectually fit students.

For Archer, structure and culture constitute ‘the parts’ as has been alluded to above. For many decades sociologists have considered the relationship between these and ‘the people’ to explore the extent to which people do indeed have the agency or ability to do what they want to do or whether they are constrained by the social and cultural conditions in which they live.

One view of the world, termed by Archer ([8], p. 40), for example, ‘Modernity’s Man’ privileges agency over structure and has its roots in the Enlightenment, a period which focused on the use of reason to better the human condition. The view of the world consistent with ‘Modernity’s Man’ is of ‘man’ creating the social world and, thus, of both structure and culture as derived from the exercise of reason. Archer also terms this view ‘upwards conflation’.

The alternative, ‘downwards conflation’ involves the idea that ‘man’ is created by society. Linked to social constructionism, this view sees all human action and thought as conditioned or shaped by society. Theorists as diverse as Levi-Strauss, Durkheim, Marx, Lacan, Foucault and Derrida had argued for the idea that ‘man’ is a product of society.

A third alternative, ‘central conflation’ is also made possible thanks to the work of structuration theorists such as Giddens who place equal weight on the systemic and individual aspects of social life. Archer is critical of central conflation on the grounds that the ‘parts’ (structure and culture) and the ‘people’ (agency) are ‘clamped together in a conceptual vice’ ([12], p. 87) or conflation. Agents are thus constrained to effect change at any given time.

To address the issue of conflation, Archer proposes the concept of ‘analytical dualism’ – put differently, for analytical purposes the ‘parts’ and ‘people’ must be examined separately to establish how and when each is activated and thus condition events and experiences at the level of the ‘Actual’ and/or the ‘Empirical’. In other words, maintains Archer, to conceptualize the interplay between the ‘parts’ and ‘people’, each must be given distinct powers and properties actualized at the level of the ‘Real’. Significantly, in this way it becomes possible to state the properties of structures and mechanisms operating in the domains of culture and structure, cultural emergent properties (CEPs) and structural emergent properties (SEPs) and also of agents’ own personal properties (PEPs), as shown in Table 1 above.

The concept of emergence is crucial in critical realism and social realism in that structure, culture and agency each have properties and are able to exercise power in their own right. Most importantly, it is through the interplay of these properties and powers that results, not deterministically, to the emergence of events at the level of the ‘Actual’ and experiences at the level of the ‘Empirical’.

Writing about agential powers and properties, Archer, particularly looked on the role of agency. She postulates that agency is exercised by means of what she terms the ‘internal conversation’ or ‘reflexivity’ ([15], p. 7). In making this argument she insists on a distinction between humans and other elements of the natural world in that humans can design ‘projects’ defined as ‘any course of action intentionally engaged upon by a human being’ (ibid). According to Archer, projects ‘promote our concerns; we form ‘projects’ to promote or protect what we care about most’ (ibid). Based on Archer’s argument, there is thus a need to accord properties and powers separately to the ‘parts’ and the ‘people’. The implication for this is that agents or human being also have powers to pursue their projects as they converse internally. These powers are exercised in relation to the powers and properties of structures and mechanisms in the domains of structure (SEPs) and culture (CEPs).

In the context of higher education, Archer’s thinking could be profoundly useful to see how agency works. We could for example observe a student from an impoverished rural area in South Africa doing things, like going to the library every day, that she hopes would enable her to obtain her Bachelor of Science qualification, being shaped by her position in society. A qualification is hoped to better her position. To pursue the project of getting a qualification, the student would need to draw on ‘the parts’, both social structures and the set of beliefs, values and so on that constitute the cultural system. The student would exercise her personal powers and properties in relation to the educational system to complete her schooling and on various other structures (including home socialization – this is possible for some students than it is for others such as responding to questions in class – this is usually the ‘norm’ in middle class educated homes where parents seat around dinner table with their children and ask questions about how one has experienced that particular day or ask questions to which they already know the answer). She would draw on beliefs in the cultural system related to the value of getting a qualification and on those related to what can constitute learning or ‘good’ learning to succeed at university; this could include home socialization where children are allowed to be autonomous or independent, as shown in Table 1 above. Working independently is key to gaining access to the ways of knowing in science.

The point of all this is that the student is consciously exercising her own personal powers as an individual to pursue her project of getting a qualification and bettering her chances in society. However, the students’ agency can be constrained by structures like her position in society or class, which could be realized as a condition of coloniality particularly in the global South, understood as a mechanism at the level of the ‘Real’ that could constrain what people can and cannot do.

3.3 A decolonial gaze

Before engaging with a decolonial gaze, it is important to first engage with coloniality, understood as a condition that sees inferiority to anything or of anything other than Euro-American or white. When [16] Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) writes about coloniality of being, for example, he notes race as an organizing principle in that whiteness gained ontological density far above blackness which essentially meant the dehumanization or disintegration of being for blackness. When it comes to higher education there is a potential for curriculum to present dominant colonial epistemic logic with its power to alienate, marginalize and exclude people and black bodies in particular. In relation to this point [17], posit that pigmentation is not the issue of concern. Rather, the issue is to be structurally positioned into position of power and privilege on the basis of whiteness, a social construct. This positionality then enables one to be historically and culturally positioned to exercise control and authority on what get learned and how it is learned. Through the construct of race, we can begin to better reflect on marginalized groups’ experiences, including those of students from rural areas in higher education [18], in the process begin to see how the education system privileges the already privileged, through the language of learning and teaching, through proximity between primary socialization and secondary socialization.

Writing on ‘Decolonial turn’ Vorster and Quin (2017) [19] have also argued that this positionality of privilege, particularly in historically white universities in South Africa, continues to privilege some forms of knowing and being that are based on colonial Western conventions informed by white institutional culture. In the process, black students’ being, and cultures are rendered invisible in curricular design and pedagogic practices. It was for this reason that students collectively challenged the inappropriateness of values underpinning disciplinary knowledge, contends [19]. For example, ([19], p. 39) explain: “For black students, curricula and pedagogic processes are often not aligned with who they are as people, and it is not possible to divorce themselves – their being – from what is taught and how it is taught”. Clearly, university curriculum and pedagogic approaches are likely to present complementaries for some students and contradictions for others [8], even in the field of science. While some students may experience a contradictory curriculum structure and enactment, it does not mean that as people they are dormant. They have the power to exercise their agency, even though circumstances may be difficult for such.

If I could take a moment and reflect on the collective of students in most South African universities during 2015 and 2016. This collective organized itself during the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall campaigns of 2015 and 2016 to object on curriculum design and pedagogic practices that are imbued with colonial legacies which renderes black students’ being, values and cultures invisible. The agency of students was thus enabled to challenge these concerns regarding coloniality of being. Coloniality of being ensures that what students bring with them from home, particularly students from marginalized backgrounds is not seen as valuable for knowledge generation in higher education [16]. From the example of a collective above, it is evident that students wanted a recognition regarding competing views of knowledge and a representation of how different knowledges are generated, including that of science. Clearly curricular is intertwined with social practices. We know this because curricular is not designed from nothingness but is designed from how particular disciplines have been historically canonized by emphasizing certain values and dispositions that are legitimated as credible in knowledge generation in those disciplines. So, disciplines are social practices but it, unfortunately, happens that some forms of knowing, being and acting are credible than others. The unfortunate part is that these are shaped by colonial legacies of disregarding other forms and valuing some which, at most, favors values of middle-class students from educated homes, often white, as it has been alluded in previous sections. The power of students’ agency, particularly black students in South African higher education system, and students from rural areas normally falls into this collective, was observed in terms of the possibilities of wanting to bring in higher education competing views of knowledge and on knowledge generation as opposed to those that are mainly based on Western traditions, in this way, it is possible to draw on the knowledge resources that students from rural areas bring with them to higher education to harness access to powerful knowledge of science that is abstract and principled. The point is here not to discredit the legitimated ways of knowing in science or higher education but to open space for a dialog and contestation of different ways of knowing.

A decolonial gaze was therefore useful to critique how the university space, physical, intellectual, and ideological could constrain genuine access to forms of knowledge valued in higher education in the field of science, if some sectors of the student population could not see themselves, their identifies and cultures being represented in structures like curriculum. The important point to note here is not to take anything from rural homes and use it in knowledge generation in science classrooms but is to bring these into the classrooms, critique them against other ways including those which are formally accepted in higher education, vis-à-vis, if we can know how to use these rigorously in curriculum design and enactment.

It is important to note that meritocracy where it is hard work and motivation, or intelligence is not assumed to be insignificant for student success, but we cannot dismiss the fact that socio-economic background is profoundly influential in enabling students’ success more than any other factor [1]. From this realization it is possible to see how the structural positioning of race and class can operate as a mechanism in constraining other students’ opportunities to succeed, in the process, the university and its structures including, but not limited to, curriculum continues to reinforce unjust relations of teaching and learning, and this chapter is an attempt to highlight these to those interested in teaching and learning in higher education, particularly in the field of science.

4. Methodological considerations

Data in this chapter was generated through Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR is considered a subset of action research, which is the “systematic collection and analysis of data for the purpose of taking action and making change” by generating practical knowledge ([20], p. 264). PAR as a methodological framework is often located in a relativist position because as a researcher you ask people questions and they give you answers and you observe them, for example, in the case under investigation, rural students’ accounts of their experiences and habits of learning from rural contexts and observations of these. Because this data was relative – multiple truths emerged, the use of critical realism and social realism was then useful in accessing or coming as close as possible to structures and mechanisms that led to the emergence of what participants in this study experienced as constraining and/or enabling the teaching and learning of science.

In this chapter, PAR was used and focused specifically on the experiences of students who have lived and learned in rural areas and at a university. The aim of this qualitative PAR research study was to engage with an idea of acquiring science in informal settings of rural areas. The idea was to find ways of tackling this powerful, yet, informally learned knowledge practices infused with scientific bases. The idea was to establish how such knowledge practices could be part of curriculum design to assist students in making sense of the abstract nature of science by drawing on what students already know, but, of course, critique it in the process for rigorous knowledge generation. In particular, how students gain epistemic access to higher education given their peculiar lived home learning experiences. The details of these experiences and observations are discussed in the findings section below.

24 2nd year science students who participated in this study were given time to engage with the idea of acquiring science in informal settings of rural areas. The reasoning behind was to find ways of harnessing the informally learned knowledge practices, with scientific underpinnings, to see how these could be contextualized and aligned to assist students make sense of the abstract nature of science. The idea was to open-up ways of learning to allow and enable students draw on what they already know so that they could see themselves, their identities and cultures represented in structures like curriculum, to give them hope in that what they already know was also valuable in knowledge generation, as well as a sense of belonging.

Participants had to choose an event that they saw as important, that they could associate with learning from rural contexts, either in churches, family and so on. Participants were asked to provide a narrative regarding such an event. They were then divided into groups of 4 and each group was asked to comment on each other’s narratives, and these were later deliberated on in a larger group for probing. These stories were audiotaped and recorded, in the process, the question driving this chapter was answered, more details are provided in the findings and discussion section below: What practices shape the learning habits of second year science students from rural backgrounds at a South African University to enable access to powerful knowledge? Critical realism, social realism and a decolonial gaze were able to provide complex explanations regarding the events of success and/or failure than simple explanations based on meritocracy.

5. Findings and discussion

This section engages specifically with findings from participants, including mechanisms in place before they joined university and after they have joined the university, in the process, consider the practices that shaped their learning habits whether these could be used as a leverage to access powerful knowledge of the discipline of science. As such, this section locates the events that may have led to clashes or interactions between participants primary home socialization and secondary academic socialization, and how these might have played out in the teaching and learning environment.

This section also looks at how agency of the participants was shaped at the research site and how this affected their participation and success. In addition, I will show how institutional culture embodied in language, technologies, pedagogies and relationships between staff and students influenced students’ sense of belonging and their academic progress and trajectories, thus enabling and/or constraining epistemic access or access to powerful knowledge of science.

The findings below express the ideas presented above. The findings are grouped into two different themes that emerged during focus group discussions.

6. Religious practices: critical thinking

One of the themes that emerged during focus group discussions related to religious practices in rural areas. Although the findings from this theme demonstrated some level of tension between participants’ religious practices and their rituals, the tension that was observed indicated that they were critical of issues, which is a useful skill to have in the sciences, a practice that is crucial for accessing the powerful knowledge of science. When they were asked about their critical incident from home before and after they have joined the university, for example, one of the participants pointed out that they needed to make a choice between following home rituals or spirituality based on Christian religion. Such choices presented a predicament for the participants because they had to either allow themselves to be ostracized by family and community when they chose spiritual beliefs or not to follow the path that they thought was the correct one for them.

Clearly, there were tensions highlighted from focus group discussions based on one of the important events from home (and the university), participants demonstrated awareness of these tensions and so, had to choose between the two competing views between culture and religion. As a critical thinker these are the issues you are most confronted with and must make informed decisions. This was highlighted as participants could observe, understand, and present different sides of a situation. It is important to note that the positionality of a person is important in any social encounter, including teaching and learning interactions. However, in an academic science environment what is more crucial is the ability to distance oneself from the phenomenon under discussion or investigation to cater for objectivity and not contaminate the investigation with personal biases. In this way it is possible to engage at argumentative level in a clear and logically presented argument. Although the idea of being objective could not be clearly identified from the responses of the participants, some elements of critical thinking that could be valuable in making arguments in science were identified such as the awareness of opposing views and deciding. This aspect is important when making arguments in science as one needs to consider a different viewpoint on the issue and still be convinced, based on evidence, that one view is worth considering than the other.

In critical realist terms, the information from the participants is what the participant said but this was an interpretation of her experience or event. The question that a critical realist would ask in this situation would be ‘what the world of the participant was to say what she said?’ Put differently, what are the structures and mechanisms that may have led to what the participants experienced as a tension observed in the focus group discussion. It is possible to see that what the participant said or experienced was or is shaped by her geographical location understood as a structure at the level of the ‘Real’ as well as beliefs about rituals and religion. So, this experience could be used as an example, amongst others, or referred to when teaching about critical thinking or making arguments in science classrooms.

Other critical elements that emerged from the geographical rural area of the participants that had to do with religion were also identified when they were responding on the things that they value based on religion. One participant was able to realize the subjectivity of a person in such situations, because people are different, they cannot all value religion in the same way, in the process they were able to draw a conclusion based on different views about religion. Others supported the idea of religion while others opposed it in favor of home rituals.

The focus on religion and home rituals is not the issue, this must be pointed out as one might ask, how is this relevant to science ways of knowing. What is important in this discussion was the critical element of building an argument that was also highlighted in that two people can hardly value the same thing. While it is true that science must be reproducible, it is also true that two scientists might look at the same phenomenon and get different results. What is important is not to discard different findings but to ask the question why these different findings. It might be possible that another’s experiment was not rigorous enough or there might have been a human error and so on. The point here is to show students that critical thinking in science is about thinking clearly in a logical way, not influenced by our personal passions and preferences. The fact that the participant raised an issue of drawing conclusions, is crucial, as this is what scientists do after conducting experiments. Examples like these could be used when teaching about critical thinking, making arguments and drawing conclusions in science to act as a pathway to access powerful knowledge of science. Obviously, science is not as simplistic as these examples, but these can enhance participation in classroom.

There is thus a potential for rural students in science classrooms to exercise their agency by drawing on what they already know in making arguments or thinking critically in the context of science and enable access, not only to ‘what to know’ but most importantly to ‘how to know’, as making informed decisions, arguments and thinking critically, not affected by personal biases is an important way of knowing in science.

What follows then is a further analysis of the knowledge resources that students from rural areas bring with them into higher education. Through this analysis, we can also see the response to the research question driving this chapter. This analysis allowed an establishment of the proximity and potential interactions between home socialization, known in literature as primary Discourse and secondary socialization also known as academic Discourse [21]. The point is to identify the key conditions that emerged in the analysis as either constraining or enabling the agency of students as having the potential to be legitimate knowers in science classrooms based on what they bring with them from rural homes. One participant indicated that there is so much to learn from their culture. However, this learning is slowly slipping away because they do not usually have conversations with their parents about cultural issues and so, lose the space to ask the questions about ‘why’ certain things are done in a particular way and the significance of that. Participants felt that they are losing most of this valuable cultural knowledge that makes them who they are as people as there will be no one to ask once their parents are no more.

From this realization there seemed to be a situation where participants are contradicted concerning university values of soliciting the ‘why’ question since asking or talking with parents was not considered in everyday conversations. Based on this contradiction, explanations and descriptions which are valued in science way of knowing seem to be lost. As such, it is possible to see that these students would find it a daunting exercise to effectively participate in formal settings that involves teaching and learning where explanations would be required, particularly in science.

What is also clear from the data is that we can observe that there are some events from rural home environments that have a potential to constrain the agency of students to participate effectively in knowledge generation. These events could be realized as emerging from the condition of coloniality of being, a condition that trivializes cultural being of blackness. Through this mechanism rural students are made to believe that anything indigenous is not worthy of being valued, let alone as valuable scholarly way of being or knowing.

The brief deliberation above has shown some tensions concerning university values and home values. This was important to note as not anything and everything from rural contexts can just be used as a pathway to access powerful knowledge. While this is true, those aspects that could be useful should be considered as there could be potential value in assisting students to effectively participate in science classrooms. In relation to this potential value participants indicated an important method of knowing in science, that is, observation. They pointed out that before one can learn to count, possibly at school, they can learn pattern association, for example, when herding cows in the field. By observing the horns and patterns of the cows, they could tell if one cow was missing, without counting them. They also indicated that elders have advanced knowledge of the seasons and so, would observe these and would know when and what to plant, on which type of soil yet did not go to school for these. They, however, pointed out that, regretfully, these practices are not recorded, which is a disadvantage. So, their wish was that they could draw on these knowledge practices as they engage with their science studies, in the process, record these so that they are not lost.

What was observable from such participants’ narratives was a sense of interaction between methods valued in science and practices from rural homes such as observing cows in the field. Such an example could be drawn upon in teaching about observation and could be critiqued based on careful and rigorous observations. Also, a distant proximity between home socialization and secondary academic socialization was also observed where students could not ask their parents about the things that they were observing from their rural surroundings. Asking questions is the most important aspect of learning in science and it is possible to see how this inability to ask question could constrain the development of agency of students from rural areas in science classrooms.

Based on the discussion above, it is pertinent to note that in middle class homes from educated families children are likely to be socialized, either wittingly or unwittingly, by their parents into the norms and values underpinning interactions involving teaching and learning [22]. In these homes it is normal for parents to ask questions, sometimes to which they already know the answer. When children get these answers right, parents would applaud their children, otherwise ask them again and again until they get it right. From then on, children learn that being asked a question to which the answer is sometimes apparent is normal and if you do not get it right the first time, that is also normal and so, are not afraid to make mistakes because it is part of the learning process [22]. Both parents and children may not be consciously aware of these practices, but these practices become their way of life, their primary socialization [21]. When these children encounter the event of asking and responding to questions at school or university, it becomes a continuation of their primary socialization and so, there is proximity between primary socialization and secondary academic socialization [23], and thus the likelihood for them to succeed. [24].

As the data from participants’ discussions and evidence from literature is showing, practices that are normal and valued, in middle class families like the ones described above, and which are normal and valued in higher education are not always apparent in rural homes as most parents are not educated and do not usually spend time asking questions from their children. It may not be surprising then to find these students struggling to respond to questions in classrooms because they are simply not used to such experiences. Then, what we can do as academic teachers would be to build on practices that these students bring with them, practices which could have a potential for meaning making like the ones discussed in the previous sections of this chapter. We need to make these ways obvious to and for students by opening multiple ways of constructing knowledge in science. Of course, these cannot be taken in a narrow sense – they must be critiqued and then contextualized for powerful knowledge generation. We need to make judgments on what could be viable and relevant for the concepts we want to teach.

What we can learn from the above analysis is that university education, including curriculum design, teaching, and learning practices are imbued with values. These values are historically, socially and culturally situated. For example, language use in science emerges from a context and that context is not neutral. Academic language use relates to values about what can count as knowledge and how it can be known. It is about ways of being and Gee’s (2008) [23] construct of Discourse does provide this understanding. As I have alluded to above regarding proximity between primary socialization and secondary socialization, understood in literature as Discourse, Gee defines Discourse as a saying, doing, believing, reading, writing and so on, meaning a combination that relates to a particular role in a particular social group. So, if one is a scientist hers or his Discourse will be related to values in the discipline. The language of science will then emerge from this.

Evidently, children from some homes where the ways of being, saying and believing such as asking questions or making an argument, will have an advantage over those from homes where these ways of coming to know are not part of everyday interactions. These are deeper theoretical considerations this chapter is substantially aiming to contribute towards and so, again, meritocratic explanations cannot be enough to account for students’ success and/or failure in higher education when considering these deeper theoretical considerations.

Another theme that emerged from the group discussions was that of the role played by teachers in rural communities in shaping students’ dispositions to navigate the university space with ease or with difficulty. This theme also shows that the events that took place before students enrolled at university are crucial to enable or constrain access to the ways of being valued in higher education, and this realization also disqualifies meritocratic explanations.

7. The character of high school teachers in conditioning students’ agency

Some setbacks that currently engulfs some sectors in the South African schooling system were observed from the data. Some of these setbacks are shaped by the legacy of the then institutionalized segregation policies of apartheid regime, which could be understood as a mechanism at the level of the ‘Real’ that shape what people can and cannot do, say and cannot say, emerging from the condition of coloniality. Some of the events that emerged from this mechanism plays out in the education system. Black people, for example, had no voice, they could not raise any concern they might have had about the poor quality of education they were receiving [25]. They had to accept whatever was given to them. Similar setbacks of not being able to voice out one’s concern were also observed from data in terms of how participants experienced their interactions with their high school teachers. Teachers did not appreciate being questioned by students if they wanted to understand a particular phenomenon or concept better. Regretfully, questioning is one of the important aspects of the ways of knowing and learning in science. When one observes something peculiar, they develop interests, then curiosity, then question why or how something is the way it is or happens the way it does. From then a hypothesis can be developed to be tested through experiments. If a student has been denied an opportunity to ask questions from school, the likelihood is that they will have trouble in engaging in such events later at university ([1], p. 24).

What could be observed from data was an emergence of schooling events at the level of the ‘Actual’ experienced by students/participants at the level of the ‘Empirical’ as self-doubt or lack of self-confidence. This must be developed through interactions involving learning and teaching [25]. This development was clearly difficult for these students because, from data, participants mentioned that teachers made them feel inferior. These events and experiences could be understood as having emerged from the level of the ‘Real’ as a cultural constraint informed by teachers’ ideas as they related to students.

Furthermore, at high school students had to accept whatever was presented to them, either by the teacher or from prescribed textbooks. There really was no room to question the information presented, which is different from what one finds at university where you must explain and justify the position you take on a particular issue. When at university, again, the likelihood is to experience cultural contradiction, intellectually and ideologically [12, 26, 27], in terms of what is expected of you as a student, that is, to be confident, question things, challenge positions and justify one’s position and so on.

These events could be observed when agents’ ability to work with the given culture (institutional culture) and structure (education system, curriculum) to pursue their own personal projects ([11], p. 8) is constrained. Surely, given these observations and experiences we can open possibilities as academic teachers to also make these students feel at home in the university space.

Based on the discussion above, it is possible to see that the problem of lack of confidence or effectively participating or asking questions or responding to questions in class, which is important for knowledge generation, is not inherent to the individual students [1]. Meritocratic explanations, suggesting that students fail because they do not work hard or not motivated enough or intelligent enough for university education cannot hold – such explanations are too simplistic [6]. But the interplay between social structures and mechanisms plays a huge role in enabling or constraining success and effective participation in class for some students.

One participant further mentioned that she lost marks during a chemistry practical because she mistakenly deleted her work. She could not ask the lecturer what to do in such a situation. Her understanding was that she could not ask the teacher, given her previous home and high school experiences. From this event, the likelihood is to blame the student, which could be true, but it could also be useful to dig deeper as to why the student did what she did or did not do what she was supposed to do because this was clearly not a matter of motivation or intelligence. The possibility could have been that the student was not used to working with computers because the geographical area where the student comes from is characterized by poor access to material resources, which could not be said for students from privileged positions or backgrounds. So, the proximity between primary socialization and secondary academic socialization could be observed as playing out here as well. This was also true when participants mentioned the effect of parents’ level of education and how this played out as they engaged with university education.

Most parents from rural areas put their trust on teachers that teachers would do what they need to do to help their children succeed and so, they do not really know what goes on regarding the education of their children. They have no idea how to assist their children with homework and so on, unlike in the homes of the educated families where parents use modeling, for example, mimicking teachers by asking questions to which they already know the answer [26] an event most prevalent in formal schooling.

Children from middle class educated family backgrounds are exposed to more than 1000 words before they register for formal schooling and so, schooling becomes something normal for them ([23], p. 25). Uneducated parents from rural areas, mainly from lower class backgrounds are then faced with a geographical structural disadvantage emerging from the apartheid mechanism, that had shaped accessibility for some and inaccessibility for others to material resources, including quality of life based on race and class [28]. As such, research corroborates students’ success and the impact of home background [22, 21, 25].

My argument thus, is to propose that as university academic teachers, let us think beyond immediate experiences of what is normal [1], that when students fail, could be based on individual students as not being motivated enough or working hard enough but let us open -up and engage with social structures that might enable or constrain students’ success or access to powerful knowledge of the discipline. Let us think about how students from marginalized rural backgrounds, for example, can be made to see that who they are could also be valuable in formal education including university education, particularly in the field of science. I think we need to recognize events and experiences of these students, some of which have been presented in this chapter because they affect how students participate in the education that is required of them. That is what this chapter is concerned with in that, based on data, it was clear that there were instances that suggested constraining events and experiences in the structural and cultural domain in enabling ease of access to the powerful knowledge practices of the university and science. There were also instances that implied positive practices and values from rural areas which could be useful for university education, including science education, experienced as critical thinking events and observations. Evidently, there is myriad of factors that could affect access to the norms, values, practices and principles underpinning disciplines in higher education to enable success and/or failure. Meritocratic explanations are too simple to account for such factors.

8. Closing remarks

The broader concern of this chapter had to do with the extent to which the science curriculum draws on students’ home learning experiences to enable meaningful access to powerful knowledge of science.

I did not intend to measure students’ competence, in this chapter, but to further contribute to the debates on re-conceptualizing racially skewed success rate of students in higher education, particularly in the field of science at the research site [3]. I hoped to show how students from backgrounds that are ‘other’ to middle-class educated families that gain access to higher education are mis-recognized and mis-framed [29] by structures like curriculum. Students’ discussions have shown the need to argue for social understandings to explore the experiences of students in higher education.

Using critical realism and social realism it was shown, in the domain of culture, the lack of acknowledgement of tertiary learning as a socially constructed phenomenon underpinned by values about what can count as knowledge and how that knowledge can be known. Rather, learning, and achievement in learning, was viewed as dependent on factors inherent to the individual such as intelligence and ‘skills.’ Learning has been observed as a socially and culturally disembodied factor. The chapter has further shown that learning and teaching as disembodied in higher education needs to be contrasted with understandings of learning and teaching as social practices emerging from structures and mechanisms which could be constraining for some but enabling for others, based on home backgrounds.

Again, in the domain of structure it was shown how curriculum, geographical location and class could act as an enablement for some and constraint for others, which disqualifies simple explanations of cause and effect, that because one is not working hard enough or motivated enough, then they will fail.

As already noted, critical realists reject determinist views of the world favoring instead an understanding which perceives structures and mechanisms at the level of the ‘Real’ as tendential. This means that although the structures and mechanisms are enduring, the way they combine to produce events at the level of the ‘Actual’ and experiences and observations at the level of the ‘Empirical’, where social interaction occurs, cannot always be predicted.

A decolonial gaze was useful to show how the education system privileges the already privileged through the proximity between primary socialization and secondary socialization.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Newton Fund, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the National Research Foundation (South Africa) [ES/P002072/1].

Additional information

Parts of this chapter were previously published in a doctoral thesis by the same author, titled “On locating the experiences of second year science students from rural area in higher education in the field of science: Teaching science by drawing on students’ lived experiences”, Rhodes University (South Africa), dated 10 March 2020.