Rubby Dhunpath
Biographic Data
| ID | 1502275 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rubby Dhunpath |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rubby |
| FAMILY NAME | Dhunpath |
| SIGNATURE | DHUNPATH R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of KwaZulu-Natal |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8900-5024 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Systemic dysfunction in South African higher education: An autoethnographic inquiry
This autoethnographic inquiry examines persistent paradoxes in South African higher education through my experiences across five decades in varied educational contexts. Drawing on Bourdieu's habitus and cultural capital, Senge's systems thinking, and decolonial theory, the paper interrogates how universities remain dysfunctional, failing to embrace systems thinking, allowing egotistical leadership to turn institutions into vanity projects while c…
Advising at Scale: A Framework for Multi-Tier Student Success Interventions in Higher Education
Student success remains a central imperative for higher education institutions globally, yet traditional advising approaches struggle with the twin challenges of scale and specificity. This paper proposes a framework distinguished by its two-dimensional scale: vertical, spanning institutional role-player hierarchies from executives to students, and horizontal, enabling personalized reach across large populations through data-driven automation. A …
The constructivist consensus revisited: Towards theoretical integrity in educational research
This position paper critiques the pervasive, often uncritical, deployment of constructivism as a theoretical framework in educational research. Drawing on Laclau's theory of empty signifiers and Sartori's analysis of conceptual stretching, I argue that constructivism has become so semantically over-extended and theoretically diluted that it functions more as a legitimating device than an analytical tool. Its migration from developmental psycholog…
Beyond empty signifiers: Reclaiming social justice as an academic pursuit in higher education
This paper critically examines the proliferation of terms such as “social justice” within higher education discourse, arguing that they often function as “empty signifiers”, concepts stripped of their theoretical depth and transformative potential. The paper uses a narrative approach to explore how these buzzwords can obscure, rather than illuminate, the path to genuine educational transformation. The analysis is grounded in a tripartite theoreti…
Unveiling the professional attributes of university teachers
This article derives from a collaborative higher education project, conceptualised, and implemented by academics from seven South African universities. These academics are members of the South African Teaching Advancement at University (TAU) Fellowship. The project has its roots in the Department of Higher Education’s National Framework for Enhancing Academics as University Teachers, which identifies six leverage points or ‘imperatives for action…
A snapshot of the chalkboard writing experiences of Bachelor of Education students with visual disabilities in South Africa
Barriers to participation signal the need for accessible teaching and learning strategies for use by students with visual disabilities in their teaching practice school placements. Teaching practice assessors should be alerted to contextual differences in resourced and under-resourced school settings and the diverse ways in which SWDs navigate these differences
Disrupting Higher Education Curriculum: Undoing Cognitive Damage
Disrupting Higher Education Curriculum
Discomfort with the inappropriateness of university curricula has met with increasing calls for disruptive actions to revitalise higher education. This book, conceived to envision an alternative emancipatory curriculum, explores the historical, ideological, philosophical and theoretical domains of higher education curricula. The authors acknowledge that universities have been and continue to be complicit in perpetuating cognitive damage through s…
Undoing Cognitive Damage
The great topmost sheet of the mass, where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful patte…
Early-career academic support at the University of KwaZulu-Natal: Towards a Scholarship of Teaching
As the demand for, and access to, higher education increases rapidly around the globe and exponentially on the African Continent, higher education institutions are under immense pressure to recruit skilled professionals who are equally proficient in disciplinary knowledge and pedagogic skills. Institutions also have an obligation to provide professional development opportunities to enhance teaching capacity. This article, based on a survey of ear…
Life History Research: Epistemology, Methodology and Representation
Much has been written about lifehistory research in recent times. It has been paraded as a counterculture to the traditional research canon, and celebrated as a genre that promotes methodological pluralism. However, lifehistory researchers have an obligation to transcend spurious claims about the perceived merits of the methodology and extend the debates around how the genre simultaneously problematises and responds to the competing challenges of…
Life history methodology: "Narradigm" Regained
Biographies, life histories and other modes of narrative research enjoy increasing popularity as an alternate research genre. However, its status as a legitimate research methodology continues to be challenged by the positivist/empiricist tradition with its artificial dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. This paper critically explores some of the joys and perils of narrative research and its value for educational…
Life history methodology: "Narradigm" Regained
Biographies, life histories and other modes of narrative research enjoy increasing popularity as an alternate research genre. However, its status as a legitimate research methodology continues to be challenged by the positivist/empiricist tradition with its artificial dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. This paper critically explores some of the joys and perils of narrative research and its value for educational…
Early-career academic support at the University of KwaZulu-Natal: Towards a Scholarship of Teaching
As the demand for, and access to, higher education increases rapidly around the globe and exponentially on the African Continent, higher education institutions are under immense pressure to recruit skilled professionals who are equally proficient in disciplinary knowledge and pedagogic skills. Institutions also have an obligation to provide professional development opportunities to enhance teaching capacity. This article, based on a survey of ear…
Life history methodology: "Narradigm" Regained
Biographies, life histories and other modes of narrative research enjoy increasing popularity as an alternate research genre. However, its status as a legitimate research methodology continues to be challenged by the positivist/empiricist tradition with its artificial dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. This paper critically explores some of the joys and perils of narrative research and its value for educational…
Life History Research: Epistemology, Methodology and Representation
Much has been written about lifehistory research in recent times. It has been paraded as a counterculture to the traditional research canon, and celebrated as a genre that promotes methodological pluralism. However, lifehistory researchers have an obligation to transcend spurious claims about the perceived merits of the methodology and extend the debates around how the genre simultaneously problematises and responds to the competing challenges of…
Disrupting Higher Education Curriculum
Discomfort with the inappropriateness of university curricula has met with increasing calls for disruptive actions to revitalise higher education. This book, conceived to envision an alternative emancipatory curriculum, explores the historical, ideological, philosophical and theoretical domains of higher education curricula. The authors acknowledge that universities have been and continue to be complicit in perpetuating cognitive damage through s…
Undoing Cognitive Damage
The great topmost sheet of the mass, where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful patte…
Early-career academic support at the University of KwaZulu-Natal: Towards a Scholarship of Teaching
As the demand for, and access to, higher education increases rapidly around the globe and exponentially on the African Continent, higher education institutions are under immense pressure to recruit skilled professionals who are equally proficient in disciplinary knowledge and pedagogic skills. Institutions also have an obligation to provide professional development opportunities to enhance teaching capacity. This article, based on a survey of ear…
Disrupting Higher Education Curriculum: Undoing Cognitive Damage
A snapshot of the chalkboard writing experiences of Bachelor of Education students with visual disabilities in South Africa
Barriers to participation signal the need for accessible teaching and learning strategies for use by students with visual disabilities in their teaching practice school placements. Teaching practice assessors should be alerted to contextual differences in resourced and under-resourced school settings and the diverse ways in which SWDs navigate these differences
Unveiling the professional attributes of university teachers
This article derives from a collaborative higher education project, conceptualised, and implemented by academics from seven South African universities. These academics are members of the South African Teaching Advancement at University (TAU) Fellowship. The project has its roots in the Department of Higher Education’s National Framework for Enhancing Academics as University Teachers, which identifies six leverage points or ‘imperatives for action…
Beyond empty signifiers: Reclaiming social justice as an academic pursuit in higher education
This paper critically examines the proliferation of terms such as “social justice” within higher education discourse, arguing that they often function as “empty signifiers”, concepts stripped of their theoretical depth and transformative potential. The paper uses a narrative approach to explore how these buzzwords can obscure, rather than illuminate, the path to genuine educational transformation. The analysis is grounded in a tripartite theoreti…
Systemic dysfunction in South African higher education: An autoethnographic inquiry
This autoethnographic inquiry examines persistent paradoxes in South African higher education through my experiences across five decades in varied educational contexts. Drawing on Bourdieu's habitus and cultural capital, Senge's systems thinking, and decolonial theory, the paper interrogates how universities remain dysfunctional, failing to embrace systems thinking, allowing egotistical leadership to turn institutions into vanity projects while c…
Advising at Scale: A Framework for Multi-Tier Student Success Interventions in Higher Education
Student success remains a central imperative for higher education institutions globally, yet traditional advising approaches struggle with the twin challenges of scale and specificity. This paper proposes a framework distinguished by its two-dimensional scale: vertical, spanning institutional role-player hierarchies from executives to students, and horizontal, enabling personalized reach across large populations through data-driven automation. A …
The constructivist consensus revisited: Towards theoretical integrity in educational research
This position paper critiques the pervasive, often uncritical, deployment of constructivism as a theoretical framework in educational research. Drawing on Laclau's theory of empty signifiers and Sartori's analysis of conceptual stretching, I argue that constructivism has become so semantically over-extended and theoretically diluted that it functions more as a legitimating device than an analytical tool. Its migration from developmental psycholog…
Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Pedagogy (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies (3 works) · Higher education (3 works) · Mathematics education (3 works) · Medical education (3 works) · Medicine (3 works) · Political science (3 works)