Race, class and the equity dilemma : examining the usefulness of a biographical questionnaire in identifying Resilient-Agency (R-A) to supplement admission criteria into the University of Pretoria

Abstract

The dilemma of accounting for race, class and equity in admission to university education is not a new one. And yet it remains a heated debate and an unsolved problem to this day. The grey areas surrounding this dilemma far outweigh the proverbial black and white. This study argues that the equity dilemma may have much to do with the way access is granted into university and aimed to offer actionable alternatives to the debate surrounding the equity dilemma: should access be granted – in attempt to redress past inequalities - on the basis of race or class? By focusing on race and/or class, we may misread the underlying signals of agency and resilience in students who work against disadvantage, even at times thrive in the face thereof, and transcend (or has the potential to transcend) all of these imposed restrictions and obstacles. In the field of education, the figure of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu looms large, and for this reason, amongst others, I mainly draw on his ideas to expand on how I came to understand this interplay between educational disadvantage as structure and the ability of some students to succeed, as agency. Yet, I did not find sociological notions of agency completely satisfactory in my attempts to understand why some students excel despite challenges and hence attempted to enrich the sociological notion of agency with a complimentary focus on the psychological concept of resilience. Consequently, my argument was that if resilience and agency is demonstrated by a student and can be perceived, it must be possible to assess it and to determine, before allowing a student access to university whether he/she is in possession of such traits. This was to be done by examining a biographical questionnaire (BQ) for its usefulness in identifying resilient-agency (R-A) and then, if it is found to be useful, implement such a BQ to augment placement at the University of Pretoria. The BQ was administered to two cohorts of students in 2012 (n=118) and 2013 (n=229) respectively. The data from the BQ was used to identify interview participants and interviews were consequently conducted with seven participants. A narrative analysis was done on the qualitative and quantitative data whereby the data was restoried into narratives. With the permission of the Registrar, the first-year marks of the students were added and organised into the narratives. A thematic analysis of the narrative was done and elucidated through the inclusion of the theoretical framework underpinning this study. Various questions arose in grappling with the positioning of the concepts resilience and agency in this study and specifically into the narratives. In wresting with them, a shift in my own theoretical understanding of these two concepts led to the investigation of a possible amalgamation of the two terms. As a result, a new conceptual language is introduced that builds on resilience and agency. The contribution of this study is found in the identification and discussion of the potential indicators for resilient-agency (R-A) as identified from the narratives presented and positioning them in such a way that they inform the future development of the BQ into an instrument that has the potential to identify R-A and therefore augment the process of university admissions and effectively address the equity dilemma.