Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Programme (MMUF)

• Part of UCT’s Equity Development Programme (EDP)• 2 UCT Prog co-ordinators • 5 students selected per year – high academic merit + social

responsible• Only black students (inclusive)

Goal is to:• recruit promising ‘black’ undergraduates• interest in academic careers• encourage & support the completion of PhD• swell the ranks of black & underrepresented groups in academy

MMUF as research site• PILOT PROJECT 2003 – 2004:• 2 x Black African students • Class, Language, Mentorship issues• stressed the heterogeneous nature of “black” experiences through a comparison of different types of Capital (Bourdieu)

• Aim: to show how undervalued capital translated into “worth”

Underlying claim: • Specific types of capital smooth successful transitions into H.E.• BUT initial absence of capital does not necessarily spell failure or

reproduce ‘existing patterns of domination’ in society.

Findings of pilot:• extent to which different types of “capital” impact on black student

experiences of h.ed

• struggle for recognition of “undervalued” capital

• strategies for converting undervalued capital into gain

• MMUF context as stimulus reflective practice

Formed basis for the PhD research

• Thesis Title The Discourse of Being Successfully ‘black’:

(Re)constructing an understanding of ‘black’ South African student identity within an Equity Development Programme at UCT.

Research Question• How do critical events and experiences impact

on the nature of the choices that ‘black’ students make, and what types of identity transformations occur in the process?

Framework

• Qualitative

• Social constructionist view of ID

• Data collecting: Reflective essays

Observation

Interview transcripts

• Conceptual tools:

Fateful moments = transformation in ID

Fateful moments

• are those when individuals are called on to take decisions that are particularly consequential for their ambitions, or more generally for their future lives. Fateful moments are highly consequential for a person’s destiny …have a particular relation to risk – decisions measured against possibilities of success and failure! (Giddens 1991: 112).

• E.g Divorce; medical results; crime

• Giddens – vital to manage risks – life appears “normal”

•Agency as a set of ‘enabling potentials’ and ‘constraining boundaries’

“Persons are largely ascribed identities according to the manner of their embedding within a discourse…I n this way cultural textsfurnish their ‘inhabitants’ with the resources for the f ormation ofselves; they lay out an array of enabling potentials, whilesimultaneously establishing a set of constraining boundaries beyondwhich selves cannot be easily made” (Shotter and Gergen 1989: ix).

Black UCT

students

Mellon-Mays

EDP

Forced to partake in a discourse of critical reflection on race & identity issues

EDP values

embedded in reflexive project –rewrite biography