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Learning outcomes are predominantly framed in narrow and measurable terms, with students as decontextualised learners. As an alternative, the paper outlines a capabilitarian approach, building a four-dimensional matrix for reconceptualising learning outcomes. It is made up of a varied, multi-dimensional set of opportunities, processes and outcomes to enable students to flourish and become people who can live fulfilling and connected lives in and beyond higher education. The matrix dimensions are made up of a capability set, corresponding functionings, material resources and conversion processes, underpinned by Constitutional and human development values. The paper draws on a project on higher education outcomes in South Africa, especially the longitudinal life history data. It makes the case for a reparative futures orientation which might dismantle the colonial-apartheid past and present, and outlines key capabilitarian concepts. The social and higher education context is sketched, followed by a focus on the capability set and what data supports its value to students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the contributions of undergraduate university education to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)' goals and development outcomes, proposing a normative capability-based approach oriented to human development. The approach is aligned with a developmental model of the university and development policy in sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa, where the study is located. It draws empirically from a four and a half year mixed-methods research project conducted with low-income, mostly rural students at five historically diverse universities in South Africa. The paper presents a justification for using the capability approach, and outlines the rationale and methodology for synthesising a specific capability set generated by theorising and empirical data. A set of corresponding functioning indicators offers an expansive approach to understanding 'learning outcomes' in contrast to dominant neoliberal approaches that seek quantification and efficiency, overlooking what cannot be easily measured. An indicative sketch of university arrangements required to advance and evaluate each functioning for development outcomes is then outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand how students from low-income rural backgrounds in South Africa experience higher education and the opportunities and obstacles they encounter, the paper draws on two waves of interviews with 30 students currently studying at three large urban universities. Using concepts of capabilities and functionings, monetary resources and 'capitals', the paper outlines common factors which shape rural students' well-being and their agency in accessing an urban university. Student voices indicate the particular importance of being able to exercise the functioning of navigating and manoeuvring through unfamiliar and often intimidating institutions. The discussion also indicates that it is the intersection of rurality and low income which shapes, even if it does not over-determine, their lives at university. It is suggested that universities could do more to support these students' well-being, and to recognise the agency and admirable determination which students bring to the challenges they face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of higher education in development and social mobility is now widely acknowledged and globally recognised. In South Africa in particular, graduates have greatly increased employment prospects. This paper takes up the importance of addressing South African university students' multi-dimensional well-being in the light of global higher education development agendas. Considering poverty and development in the space of higher education – specifically in the lives of youth from low-income households in South Africa – I draw on two waves of life history data from undergraduate students at five universities. Material-cultural conditions for a threshold of well-being emerged powerfully in every single student narrative, indicating a need for some rethinking of capability deprivation and poverty. This paper conceptualises three broad hardship categories specific to higher education, considering the multiplicity of factors and complexity of low-income in student experiences and achievements. Even though the theoretical framing draws on Sen's capability approach and its attractive moral perspective, the paper also foregrounds students' material well-being as significant in understanding how education can advance change, and not only reproduce social inequalities. The challenge remains, how do we reconcile resources and capabilities, and to link freedoms to financial analysis in evaluating the lives that students value? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus is on the micro-possibilities of student capabilities formation as the end of public-good higher education, rather than on a systems or organizations approach more commonly found in discussions of the public good and higher education. This does not discount other valuable public-good ends. Using South Africa as a global South context, a capability-based approach to the public good of higher education is proposed for its humanizing ethic, attention to fair opportunities, and participation in terms of what students are able to do and to be in and through higher education. A capability frame is complemented by thinking about decoloniality and epistemic justice to help identify central higher education capabilities. The three proposed intersecting capability dimensions are as follows: personhood self-formation, epistemic contribution, and sufficiency of economic resources, intended to guide university practices and policy interventions in the direction of the public good. By populating the space of the public good with capabilities, a shift is made away from micro-economics which see the public good as a reductionist space of commodities and human capital development. Higher education is rather understood as having both instrumental and intrinsic value, generating an alternative logic to that of neo-liberalism, and an individualist ontology of competition and untrammeled markets. The pressures of the global context are acknowledged so that the public good is understood as both “ideal-aspirational” but also “practical-feasible” in the light of local South African conditions. An expanded capability-based framing would contribute to reducing higher education inequalities as a public-good and public-accountable contribution by universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a methodological approach, participatory action research (PAR), and its variant of critical action research in education, aims to further social justice and generate transformative change. Although this understanding of PAR is well rehearsed, there is still a gap in detailed explorations of the transformative impact of PAR projects in higher education settings beyond the classroom: how do we then know whether transformative change through PAR has taken place, in which ways, through which processes, and for whom. This article aims to address these questions through proposing the use of a participatory action research cube (PARC) as a human capabilities evaluative framework for personal and structural transformative change enabled by PAR projects. Evaluating transformative change from this perspective rests on both the normative nature of the capabilities approach in its justice concerns, as well as consideration for individual well-being, understood as the expansion of freedoms people have to live the lives they value. Evaluating change both includes personal well-being as well as broader social or structural impact in the direction of more social justice. To demonstrate this empirically, we report on an eight-month PAR project on one rural South African university campus, where 13 undergraduate students were involved in researching gender inequalities on their campus. The PARC analysis highlights the development of capabilities and agency through axes of participation, knowledge development, and public deliberation, as well as identifying the developmental impact of these axes on transformative change for the participants, as well as the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers ways to theorise aspirations in terms of capabilities and agency to function as human beings, as well as our resources to act and participate in this world using a South African case of women students’ aspirations. In this analysis higher education should foster women’s freedom as critical agents to make genuine choices about their lives and futures, including being able to engage critically with gender norms. The paper thus explores critical agency, together with aspirations – the goals one wants to reach in the future – that indicate which capabilities are valued and which could unlock critical agency. However, the paper also considers the ambiguities generated by the persistence of gender norms and the way these may work in higher education cultures to constrain what women have reason to value and hence their capabilities and achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the continuing effects of race-based inequalities in South Africa, with a particular focus on university education; it seeks to understand what lies beneath the persistence of race-based thinking. A conceptual framework which aligns everyday racism as a daily practice and the normative yardstick of human capabilities is outlined before examining an empirical case study of a student development programme at one South African university. The policy and historical context of the case study is sketched before proceeding to an interpretation of 70 qualitative interviews with black and white students who have participated in the programme. The data was analyzed for evidence of personal and interpersonal dimensions of racism, but also for evidence of self transformation enabled by the programme. The article argues that persistent though race inequalities still are in South Africa, there is the possibility of change and the development of inclusive social relations among diverse students through education, and that it is then the responsibility of a university to fashion critical educational opportunities that can foster this potential and reconfigure views, attitudes and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The complex transformative intent of policy goals is often marginalized in favour of tangible, measurable outcomes. Such a pattern is evident in the tracking of global social justice goals, such as gender equality, where sole reliance on numerical parity data to track progress has led to the simplification of the concept for the sake of measurement. This intensifies the need to focus both on conceptual and methodological considerations in policy development and evaluation to enhance human development and promote the transformation of inequalities towards social justice. Through reporting on a mixed-methods process to inform and develop a capabilities-based gender equality policy at a South African university, the paper asks what gender equality should look like conceptually, and identifies empirically valued functionings and capabilities which could act as transformative policy evaluation indicators. The paper reports on diverse student data from 57 qualitative interviews and 843 survey respondents, which indicate differences between what social groups value and where interventions are needed. The paper suggests that the capabilities approach could be an important evidence-based policy driver in higher education, with the possibility to combine both a rich conceptual approach and methodological considerations in operationalization so that social justice goals and outcomes result. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper considers citizenship formation at universities, drawing on the example of a student leadership project at the University of the Free State, a formerly White South African university, in a higher education context and society where racialised difference continues to influence peer relationships. The paper proposes a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of social citizenship, as described by T.H. Marshall, enriched by the capabilities approach, which adds specific citizenship dimensions of deliberation, acknowledgment of heterogeneity, and agency goals and activities as core elements of being able to be and to do as citizens. This is operationalised by investigating the student development intervention, based on biographical interview data from 50 of the 71 students who participated in the first iteration of the programme. The data is analysed for the three capability dimensions and for student criticisms of the programme, before an overall judgment is made of the programme’s contribution to democratic values and citizenship formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Statistics show that student enrolment in higher education institutions in South Africa has dramatically increased over the past years, a clear indication that higher education (HE) is addressing issues of equitable access in the wake of an exclusionary apartheid past. Despite these positive trends, there are still marginalised groups in society about whom we know little, and who risk being overlooked both in access statistics and at the level of actual lives. The article therefore outlines the aspirations and challenges for vulnerable young people in accessing higher education, based on a case study conducted at Orange Farm informal settlement in South Africa. A qualitative approach, using Sen (2009, 1999a) and Nussbaum's (2011) capabilities approach (CA) was adopted as the conceptual frame for the light it casts on real lives, opportunities and plural achievements, with empirical data collected through face-to-face interviews with purposively selected young people living in an Orange Farm orphanage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation of a public-good, capabilities-based approach to professional education in South African universities is outlined and proposed as a contribution to wider social transformation. The relevance and importance of understanding what Amartya Sen describes as ‘capability failure' in the lives of people living in poverty is explored and, following from this, how professionals ought to contribute by virtue of their university education, and hence privilege, to making people's lives go better. The key criterion in developing and evaluating professional education is then how professionals are educated to expand the scope of effective freedoms each person has to lead a life she has reason to value, underpinned at all times with respect for human dignity. The process by which a Professional Capabilities Index (PCI) was generated theoretically and empirically is explained and the argument advanced for the PCI as a practical tool for professional education oriented to improving public services for the poor and, hence, the public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education of professionals oriented to poverty reduction and the public good is the focus of the article. Sen’s ‘capability approach’ is used to conceptualise university-based professional education as a process of developing public-good professional capabilities. The main output of a research project on professional education in South Africa is an innovative ‘Public-Good Professional Education Index’ generated by using three knowledge sources: theory; empirical data from five university-based professional education departments in three universities in South Africa; and deliberations with stakeholders. Here the case of a Department of Engineering is selected to exemplify how the Index assists an evaluation of the development of public-good professional capabilities in universities, which allows some optimism in the spaces between realism and idealism. Attention is drawn to the relevance of the approach and arguments to contemporary university-based professional education worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines and explores a key obstacle to evaluating education policy using the capability approach. According to the capability approach, education policy should be targeted towards expanding people's capabilities. Values are central to an individual's capability set, because they determine the functionings important to them, and therefore the capabilities which are valuable to that individual. However, it is argued here that education has a more complex function than other areas of social policy, as education is able to influence and transfer values much more directly. How do we examine the relationship between education and the expansion of an individual's capabilities, if at the same time the process of education may directly determine the very nature of the capability set itself? As a solution, a form of education is proposed that would enable students to become aware of the values they hold, and develop them further through fostering critical thinking, practical reason, and access to knowledge, rather than directly imparting values to students. We illustrate this drawing on a recent project on higher education and transformation in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper reports on a research project investigating the role of universities in South Africa in contributing to poverty reduction through the quality of their professional education programmes. The focus here is on theorising and the early operationalisation of multi-layered, multi-dimensional transformation based on ideas from Amartya Sen''s capability approach. Key features of a professionalism oriented to public service, which in South Africa must mean the needs and lives of the poor, are outlined. These features include: the demand from justice; the expansion of the comprehensive capabilities both of the poor and professional capability formation to be able to act in ‘pro-poor’ ways; and, praxis pedagogies which shape this connected process. This theorisation is then tentatively operationalised in a process of selecting transformation dimensions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores both the personal narratives of a group of black and white undergraduate students and the institutional discourse at one historically white and Afrikaans medium university now undergoing its own transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. It considers how students talk about their actual experiences and the micro-realties of their personal biographies, what this reveals about how they construct and reconstruct race and identity, and how discourses of race and racialized identities are being reproduced or transformed under new historical and institutional conditions of possibility. The focus is twofold: on the one hand on the contradictions of institutional discourse which both formally admits black students but may subtly work to exclude them as well; and on the other on the friendships that students develop as just one exemplar of how race works itself out biographically and personally. The particular issue is to understand institutional and individual ‘default identities’ which work to erase or obscure the power relations of race and hence to enable race to persist, but also to explore moments of transformation when new identities are made possible. The paper further seeks to contribute to narrative inquiry, following Wright Mills's notion of the need to consider the intersections of history, biography and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from theories of identity formation and feminist theories, this paper develops an account which is both structural and personal of the social construction of academic women's lives in a South African setting. Such discussion is necessary given the paucity of material on gender in South Africa, and timely in its comparative account of the shaping effects not only of gender, but also of race in the academy. Using life-history interviews, the paper explores and begins to explain the marginalisation of women in South African universities where male and masculine carries greater cultural prestige, and where the gendered economy and gender divisions in private lives shape and constrain academic selves, but where race has been and is a central carrier of power. Using the words of the women, it seeks to unpick the seamless narration of the White, male, masculinist colonial university as a move towards a more inclusive and so more fully human account of aspects of life in South African universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article explores the experiences of a group of women on two senior academic committees at the University of the Western Cape, in order to understand how practices in such committees contribute to the exclusion and marginalisation of women, and particular constructions of subjectivity. The broader university context, its history and current ranking of academic women and men, black and white, provides a contextual frame for the narrower focus. Experience is not seen to 'speak' for itself, even where narrative 'episodes' attempt to portray what it must be like to 'be there'. Thus, post-structuralist insights reveal women's contestation as well as accommodation of relations of domination so that the account is studded through with moments in which this group of academic women are powerful as well as powerless, speaking as well as silent, struggling against/with inner voices and outdated cultural scripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]