Writing Centre: A space for inclusivity in higher education? A case study of a University of Technology in Durban, South Africa

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_26How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Writing Centre; inclusive pedagogy; social inclusion; diversity equity and fairness; disadvantaged students; academic literacies

Abstract

Writing Centres (WCs) have become a critical component of HE, especially in their role of building students writing capabilities. Moreover, WCs are ascribed to the purpose of student retention through inclusive teaching practices. Remarkably, there has been a paucity of evidence-informed studies investigating the WC and students’ inclusion nexus. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the WC’s support creates an inclusive and enabling environment for students to succeed at university. The article grounds its analysis on Stentiford and Koutsouris’s (2020) notion of inclusion in higher education, which asserts that inclusivity in HE is underpinned by the choice of pedagogies. The paper used a mixed methods approach to collect data from students who had consulted the WC at a selected University of Technology (UoT). Online qualitative surveys from students who had consulted with the WC were used to evaluate whether students perceived the support as inclusive and enabling. The feedback from surveys found that by using inclusive pedagogy, the WC facilitated the inclusion of disadvantaged students. Therefore, the article deduces that the WC plays a crucial role in circumventing the trend of high dropout rates among black previously disadvantaged students at universities. However, WCs are externally funded entities that often lack resources to reach the desired number of students. This paper makes the case that WCs must be integrated into the university so that they can be more effective.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ntuthuko Mhlongo
AU  - Patience Mutsvairigwa
AU  - Nkosinathi H. Xulu
AU  - Nondumiso C. Thusi
AU  - Siyanda Khanyile
AU  - Nondumiso Shabangu
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/06
TI  - Writing Centre: A space for inclusivity in higher education? A case study of a University of Technology in Durban, South Africa
BT  - Proceedings of the 10th Focus Conference (TFC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 395
EP  - 411
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_26
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_26
ID  - Mhlongo2023
ER  -