Browsing by Author "Reddy, Vijay."
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Item Life histories of Black South African scientists : academic success in an unequal society.(2000) Reddy, Vijay.; Jansen, Jonathan David.; Thomson, A. S.The purpose of this research is to document the experiences of black South African scientists en-route to gaining a doctorate and provide an explanation of how and why they achieved academic success in the unequal South African society. The South African apartheid society was designed to promote black intellectual underdevelopment. Some managed to proceed to university and a few gained a doctorate. Little is known about these experiences beyond the anecdotal accounts. This study attempts a more systematic study about academic success in an unequal society. The study used a life history approach to understand and explain academic success. The study is not located in any particular discipline or apriori theoretical constructs. The approach involved individuals relating their experience and their subjective interpretation of their experiences. I have written individual stories and by grounded theorising in a cross-case analysis I have suggested constructs to provide an explanation of why they achieved academic success. This study gives us the social history of the education for blacks in South Africa for the period 1948 to 1994. The life stories are contextualised within that social historical period. In this study the analytical, research stories of individuals are presented. These stories illuminate the unfolding of the academic lives and the dynamics that shaped the unfolding of those lives. Using the ten stories a composite thick description of how the variables (social, institutional and individual) shaped the academic pathways for the group is presented. From this data explanatory constructs are suggested to provide an explanation of their academic success. In order to pursue and achieve academic success it was necessary that participants demonstrate academic capability and have access to resources (material and information). In this research I propose three new explanatory constructs plus a fourth one which is not unanticipated but expresses itself in unusual ways in the South African context. The three constructs I am proposing and which are not found in the life history literature about academic success are: academic role replication and expectation; strategic compliance and deferred gratification. The explanatory construct, coherence of roles and support mechanisms, had a particular characteristic in South Africa during this period.Item Life histories of people who stutter : on becoming someone.(2003) Kathard, Harsha Mothilall.; Samuel, Michael Anthony.; Reddy, Vijay.This study explores participants' experiences of stuttering in their lifeworlds over time through the lens of self-identity formations. The critical questions raised are: How do participants form their self-identities in their lifeworlds over time in relation to stuttering? In the context of their self-identity formations, how do they negotiate stuttering? A narrative life history methodology was used with intention to access personal, temporal and social dimensions of experience. Seven adult participants, two female and five male participants, with histories of living with stuttering since childhood, were invited to share their stories. Their personal experiences are embedded in diverse lifeworlds in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a context making a sociopolitical transition from apartheid to democracy. The data was produced through retrospective accounts of their experiences via a series of dialogical interviews. Issues of empathy, power, and positioning and quality in the research process are problematised. The data was analysed at three levels. The first level of analysis entailed a narrative analysis of interview data, represented as seven individual research stories. The second level of analysis is a cross-case analysis using the seven research stories for the purposes of theorising. The outcomes of the third level of analysis are abstractions and explanatory concepts which respond to the critical questions in a general way. The genesis of two self-identity trajectories, self-identity as DisOther and self-identity as Able/Potential are traced over time. The biographical, contextual and social forces shaping self-identity formations and participants' actions in negotiating stuttering are illuminated. The self-identity trajectories are unique in the context of each biography. However, the relative prominence of self-identity formation as DisOther across cases in school years was evident. In contrast, self-identity as Able/Potential became prominent, during adulthood, for some participants. The experience is rendered as complex and fluid through a set of abstractions and explanatory concepts. These concepts foreground the changing and multiple relationships between self-identity formations, the influence of social forces shaping self-identity, the impact critical catalysts shaping self-identity formations, and strategic manipulation of self-identity in negotiating stuttering. In particular, the strategies to negotiate stuttering successfully are examined. The limitations of the study and potential application of this theoretical offering in the research, educational and clinical domains of Speech-Language Pathology are discussed.