Livelihood Strategies of Dock Workers in Durban, c. 1900-1959

This dissertation examines the livelihood strategies of African dock workers in Durban, South Africa, between the Anglo-Boer War and the 1959 strikes. These labourers did not conform to common conceptions of radical dock workers or conservative African migrant workers. While Marxist scholars have been correct to stress the working class consciousness of Durban’s dock workers, this consciousness was also more ambiguous. These workers and their leaders displayed a peculiar mix of concern for workers’ issues and defences of the rights and interests of African traders. Many of Durban’s dock workers were not only wage labourers. In fact, only a minority had wages as their only source of income. The Reserve economy played a role in sustaining the consumption levels of their households and, more importantly, more than half of the former dock workers interviewed for this research engaged in some form of commercial enterprise, often based on the pilferage and sale of cargoes. Some also teamed up with township women who sold pilfered goods while the men were at work. This combination of commercial strategies and wage labour has often been overlooked in the literature. By looking at these livelihood strategies, this dissertation considers how rural and urban economies interacted in households’ strategies and reinterprets the reproduction of labour and the household in order to move beyond dichotomies of proletarian versus rural consciousness. The dock workers’ households were neither proletarian households that were forced to reside in the countryside because of apartheid, nor traditional rural homesteads with a missing migrant member. The households were reproduced in three geographically separate spheres of production and consumption, none of which could reproduce the household on its own. These spheres were dependent on each other, but also separate, as physical distance gave the different household members some autonomy. Such multi-nodal households not only bridged the rural and the urban, but equally straddled the formal/informal divide. For many, their employment on the docks made their commercial enterprises possible, which allowed them to retire early from urban wage labour. Consequently, the interests of wage labourers could not be divorced from those of African small-scale entrepreneurs.

Supporting Metacognitive Development in Early Science Education: Exploring Elementary Teachers' Beliefs and Practices in Metacognition

Metacognition is the understanding and control of cognitive processes. Students with high levels of metacognition achieve greater academic success. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine elementary teachers’ beliefs about metacognition and integration of metacognitive practices in science. Forty-four teachers were recruited through professional networks to complete a questionnaire containing open-ended questions (n = 44) and Likert-type items (n = 41). Five respondents were selected to complete semi-structured interviews informed by the questionnaire. The selected interview participants had a minimum of three years teaching experience and demonstrated a conceptual understanding of metacognition. Statistical tests (Pearson correlation, t-tests, and multiple regression) on quantitative data and thematic analysis of qualitative data indicated that teachers largely understood metacognition but had some gaps in their understanding. Participants’ reported actions (teaching practices) and beliefs differed according to their years of experience but not gender. Hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated that the first block of gender and experience was not a significant predictor of teachers' metacognitive actions, although experience was a significant predictor by itself. Experience was not a significant predictor once teachers' beliefs were added. The majority of participants indicated that metacognition was indeed appropriate for elementary students. Participants consistently reiterated that students’ metacognition developed with practice, but required explicit instruction. A lack of consensus remained around the domain specificity of metacognition. More specifically, the majority of questionnaire respondents indicated that metacognitive strategies could not be used across subject domains, whereas all interviewees indicated that they used strategies across subjects. Metacognition was integrated frequently into Ontario elementary classrooms; however, metacognition was integrated less frequently in science lessons. Lastly, participants used a variety of techniques to integrate metacognition into their classrooms. Implications for practice include the need for more professional development aimed at integrating metacognition into science lessons at both the Primary and Junior levels. Further, teachers could benefit from additional clarification on the three main components of metacognition and the need to integrate all three to successfully develop students’ metacognition.