Abstract
M.Ed.
In spite of notable changes that have been made in education since 1994 in
South Africa, many challenges are still being experienced in the education
system. Not least of these are the academic challenges experienced by
learners from contexts of poverty, and in particular, those who live in informal
settlements and who attend public (former model C) suburban secondary
schools. Inclusive education, founded upon the principles of human rights,
aims to provide equal and quality education to all learners in South Africa. A
process of addressing and responding to the diversity of learners, its objective
is to reduce exclusion from education, however, many learners either fail to
achieve or drop out of the education system altogether. In the changing
educational climate, and with limited research in this sector of education
being found, the researcher, wished to explore, interpret and describe these
academic challenges.
To achieve this, a qualitative approach was chosen with a phenomenological
design and a constructivist paradigm. The methodology was selected
according to the research question. Data collection was based on semistructured,
conversational interviews and projective techniques, namely, the
sentence completion method. The data analysis approach was qualitative in
nature. Data from both the interviews and incomplete sentence sets were
compared with connections sought between the data. Attention was paid to
trustworthiness and ethical considerations in the study.
The results of the study revealed four themes: Learning Challenges;
Relationships; Lack of Resources; Family Support. Firstly, the study revealed
that learning and academic achievement was of great importance to the
participants, secondly, relationships played an important role in learning,
thirdly, a lack of resources was a major challenge, and finally, the importance
of family support was indicated. Guidelines and recommendations were
provided to educators and other learning support professionals in order to
support participants and other learners so that they can achieve their potential
in school.