Abstract:
The White Paper of 1997 on Higher Education Transformation formed the basis from
which community engagement (CE) was adopted as a core purpose of higher
education (HE) in South Africa, together with teaching/learning and research.
However, CE is often marginalised within the HE space with perceptions of it being an
add-on and a “nice-to-have” activity. This is of course due to a lack of conceptual clarity
of CE, which is often influenced by the variety of contexts in which CE should be
practiced by higher education institutions (HEIs), hampering the progress and
implementation of CE within respective HEIs. The institutional practices of CE and the
fostering of civic-mindedness in students and awareness of the role they are to play
in socity thus become the responsibility of respective HEIs and faculties in relation to
their contextual milieu. In this qualitative case study I seek to understand the role
institutional practices of CE at the faculty under study have played in shaping Art
Education student-teacher (AEST) attitudes towards CE. To acquire this
understanding the study makes use of an Art-Based Research method consisting of
reflection drawings as the primary means of collecting data. Incorporating the voice of
AESTs’ in the timely debate about CE within HE provides the Faculty of Education
with valuable insights that inform CE practices from AESTs’ authentic experiences of
CE. The study reveals that while Methodology of Art Education (JMK/ART/Fourth
year)1 exists within the auspices of the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Education,
AESTs contrarily regard the faculty as not playing a significant role in the shaping of
their attitudes, understanding and definitions towards CE.
