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Departement Sentrum • Department Centre

UNIVERSITEIT VAN DIE VRYSTAAT • UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE • YUNIVESITHI YA FREISTATA Tel (051) 401 3000 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.ufs.ac.za

Scraping the surface: What is the bottom line regarding ethics

Ms Moliehi Rosemary Mpeli

School of nursing

University of the Free State

E-mail: [email protected]

Prof. M.L.E. Monnapula-Mapesela

Centre for Higher Education Studies and Development

University of the Free State

E-mail: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Overview of the presentation

• The purpose of the paper

• Background and literature

• Research design and methodology

• Research findings

• Recommendations and conclusion



Purpose of the paper

This paper advocates:

• The importance of cultural values as a basis for ethics formation and morality in higher education

• Recognition of cultural values as the way forward for (ethical) conduct in higher education in democratic and diverse communities



Purpose of the paper cont.

• To share our experiences as academics within an institution that lacked cultural pluralism

• To demonstrate how our cultural values were/are neglected by the dominant culture



Background and literature

The role of education in South Africa pre-1994:

• Cornerstone for apartheid - transmit values, myths and ideologies

• Sustain apartheid and culture of the Afrikaners



Afrikaner vs native education

The Afrikaner’s education

• Based on Christian • National• Spiritual and• Cultural

The native education

• Principles of trusteeship• Non-equality and

segregation • Controlled in terms of

structure and content



Afrikaner vs native education cont.

The Afrikaner’s education

• In the light of God’s discreet plan and will to separate nations

( Robertson and Whitten: 1978 , Hirson: 1979, Johnson: 1982)

The native education

• With the aim of inculcating the Afrikaners’ way of life as senior trustee



Aims of native education: pre- 1994

• To prepare them for occupations such as gardening and house-keeping

• To teach them that equality is not for natives and

• Their place within the white community is not above certain forms of labour

(Birley: 1968 and Horrel: 1968, Johnson:1982)



The dawn of democracy 1994

Main issues of concern:

• Transformation agenda was strengthened

• Reconstruction and development of the country

• Redress of inequality

• In higher education many policies were developed



The dawn of democracy cont.

These policies advocate issues of transformation such as:

• Transforming institutional cultures

• Widening access for blacks

• Access with success



What about institutional culture?

• Transparency, an open culture of integrity, ownership and accountability

• Recognition of stakeholders values



Institutional culture

• Design of institutional policies to meet objectives

• Ensure existence of conditions that bring the best in all people– Are all people valued as human beings?– Is there a sense of family or community?– Are people physically and emotionally safe?



Ethics in Higher education

• How does higher education contribute towards ethics development?

• Who evaluates the impact of these strategies on ethical development?

• Who ensures that these are enforced in teaching and learning?



Ethics in Higher education

Examples:

• Orientation speeches

• Convocations

• Community service learning

• Religious and spiritual activities

(Daltone and Crosby 2006)



Ethics in Higher education cont.

• What are some of the ethical issues that you encounter in your own practice?



• Racism• Plagiarism • Fraud • Theft• Prejudice

• Stereotyping• Sexism• discrimination on

grounds of disability and sexual orientation

• gentlemen’s clubs• queen bee syndrome,



Controversies regarding Ethics

• Problems regarding teaching ethics and teaching about ethics

• What type of ethics should be taught?

• Can an individual be taught to be ethical?

• Are professions: law, health, business void of ethical issues?



Concept culture

• Lacks a single meaning, and entails:

– Collective programming of mind that distinguishes members of a culture

– It is an important aspect of an individual’s life

(Sivathambi : 2000, Adigalar: 2000, Hofstede: 1983, Matšela: 1979, Boas:1934)



Culture cont.

• It builds a person’s identity

• It is a bedrock for survival of people

• It influences decision-making, thinking, actions and behaviour

(Sivathambi :2000, Adigalar :2000, Hofstede: 1983, Matšela: 1979, Boas :1934)



Values Cultural values Ethics

•Acted out involuntarily

•Guide interactions, behaviour, attitudes and psychosocial processes

•They shape life and experiences

•Patterns of goodness or badness assigned to ways of being in the world•Shapes one’s worldview and behaviour•Are related to development of ethics•Give meaning to thinking, decisions and actions•Deeply engrained in person(Leininger and McFarland 2002, Bennet 1998)

•Result from personal choice after reflection and deliberation on cultural values and morals

•They are incorporated in the identity and personal policy of a person’s life

•They guide decision-making and actions

(Winberg 2006)



Research design and methodology

• Qualitative research

• Critical autoethnography



The designs

These designs hold same assumptions :

• That reality in neither fixed, nor entirely external

• But reality is created by and moves with changing perception and beliefs

(Cormack 2000, Duncan 2004, Marxwell 1996)



Critical Autoethnography

• It is a process by which the researcher chooses to make explicit use of own position, involvement and experience as an integral part of ethnographic research

(Duncan 2004)



Critical Autoethnography cont.

• Involves the researchers examining critically their culturally situated lived experiences

• Reconceptualising their cultural identities

(Duncan 2004)



Critical Autoethnography cont.



The context: Our university

• It is a historically white Afrikaans university

• 1904 - Its transformation started and has been in transit ever since

• 1944 - Was forced by the Dutch Reformed Church to introduce the Afrikaner Education policy and to use Afrikaans as the only medium of instruction




• 1988 – One black student was allowed to register at the university

• 1989 – Hostel accommodation ban for black students was lifted

• 1993 - Parallel medium was introduced

• The university is still the stronghold of the Afrikaans culture




Current university values are:

• Academic freedom and autonomy

• Excellence

• Fairness

• Service

• Integrity



Who are we?

We are Basotho

• Raised within a rich culture that believes initiation into the human experiential world is a lifelong endeavour



Who are we? Cont.

Indigenous initiation/education:

• Is a strategy that gives entry into another experience

• It is through initiation that apprentices become introduced into adulthood and into important social operations



Who are we? Cont.

• Started from infancy where a woman of good repute initiated our first morsel of meat

• Through proverbs, fables, folktales, legends, and myths, we learned the values of our culture

• Cultural values form the basis of our experiences



Who are we? Cont.

• When we were adolescents, our parents decided on Western education for us, instead of indigenous initiation/education

• This was approved by the community as the benefits of this were and are still obvious



Who are we? Cont.

• Our culture forms part of our inner world

• In order to make sense of every situation, we consult our values faculties, which are our experiences



Our cultural identity

• Our culture poses a collective identity and cultural frame of reference

• This identity is based on our values which are some how hierarchical



Our cultural values

• Pursuit of peace (kgotso)

• Service for the benefit of society

• Human dignity is an important attribute

• Self-expression

• Appreciation and encouragement of the good and pursuit of excellence, beauty and mastery



Our cultural values

• Believe in God

• Authority and respect

• Industriousness and wealth



Experiences : Results

• Personal experiences of the authors who studied at a transforming university of South Africa

• Later on, we both became academic staff members



Experiences : Results • Scheduling of lectures

• Parallel medium (English and Afrikaans)

• Window dressing

• Institutional policies

• Separate hostels (Rietz video)

• Single classroom composed of groupings of students based on race




• Selective communalism

• No trusting relationship between the communities that were separated

• Talking about racial issues, differences and individuality is a sin




• We feel like visitors, outsiders even after 12 years of academic life

• What keeps us going is the resilience taught at childhood



Experiences : Results cont.

• At times we become depressed with a strong urge to quit (resigning has been one strategy employed by many of our colleagues at UFS)



Impact of unrealised values

• When a person’s culture, security and values are threatened, neglected or oppressed: – Suffer ethnostress

• feelings of hopelessness• malfunctioning behaviour• loss of identity, • denial of self/identity and culture

(Antone and Hill 1992)



Recommendations and conclusions

• The interface between practice and theory of ethics should be unified by the harmony created by being at peace with ones cultural values



Recommendations and conclusions cont.

• Ethics should not only be good on paper/theory but should be acted out in moral worth

• Make students aware of the practice of ethics




• Ethics should be transferable/translated into good action and conduct (such conduct should display ethical significance or worth/value observable as good will)




• Value clarification

• Assist all students in searching and researching their cultural values/prior knowledge

• Cultural values should form a basis for the development of ethical discernment

THANK YOU!

departement sentrum department centre universiteit van die vrystaat university of the free state...

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