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In the context of rapid change in higher education, there is a great demand for powerful theory and methods to address key issues, particularly related to teaching and learning. This chapter traces the uptake of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in higher education studies in South Africa to make sense of how and why this theory has become so popular. LCT draws on the works of Bernstein and Bourdieu to provide a powerful theoretical and analytical toolkit with which to analyse social practices. In the chapter, we argue that the attraction of this theory is that it attends to a ‘knowledge blindness’ whereby much higher education research, particularly that focussed on teaching and learning, fails to consider the nature and effects of the discipline or field being learned. The use of this theory is illustrated in the chapter by reference to a number of publications. In doing so, we illustrate the importance of conceptual tools that allow an interrogation of what we are teaching, who we are teaching and how this social practice takes place.

The chapter addresses the challenges of research into educational technology in the context of higher education and of theory-building in this field afforded by singular research methods and philosophies. Using an exemplar case study, the authors argue for the adoption of pluralism to facilitate deep exploration of complex social phenomena. Pluralism is conceptualized by distinguishing between methodological, analytical, and philosophical pluralism. In addition, arguments for and against pluralism are advanced. The chapter concludes with step-by-step proposals for engaging pluralism in higher education research studies.

Anger responding to government-imposed COVID-19 pandemic mandates is examined in relation to 2021 international reports of street protests in cities, with a focus on Perth, Western Australia. Angry protestors displayed a variety of signs and symbols, united under banners demanding freedom. A multi-disciplinary analysis attends to distrust in public health mandates in the global context of an insecure biosphere. Mandates can signify symbolic death, and anger an ‘immune’ response to lifeworld constraints. Anger among nurses and vaccine-hesitant protestors signifies ethical rejection of super-imposed mandates, and fear of alleged vaccine harms. Official pandemic communications are held to be ill-timed, lacking information meaningful to diverse citizens' needs, and offset by poorly contextualised data and unreliable pre-packaged interpretations communicated via digital technologies. A novel hypothesis proposes semiotic misrecognition of the global nature of communications from intersecting ecosocial crises may underlie protestors' anger. Modelling of a management system to validate broad contextual knowledges may restore meaningful balance and public solidarity, to creatively respond to future human crises.

The most recent alteration in engineering technology education in South Africa is the establishment of a new degree qualification – Bachelor of Engineering Technology. The new qualification standards alone do not give a clear distinction between knowers in the engineering technician and engineering technologist categories. This lack of clarity about what knower the new programme is intended to produce is a stumbling block to educators who need to plan, develop and implement the new curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise the intended knower dispositions for the new programme by carrying out a comparative analysis with the existing programme, thereby assisting curriculum designers particularly with development of effective scaffolding for engineering technology students.

In this paper, the authors conceptualise the intended knower dispositions for the new programme by carrying out a comparative analysis of the current and new exit-level outcomes. Each of the qualifications for the engineering technology programmes are comprehensively interpreted and analysed in this paper. This paper uses Bloom’s taxonomy and Luckett’s knowledge plane as lenses to perform the analysis and draw a distinction between knowers in the engineering technician and engineering technologist categories.

The analysis used in this paper suggests that the engineering technologist category exhibits a relative shift towards subjective and theoretical “ways of knowing”. It is found that the shift from practical ways of knowing to theoretical will evoke a shift from contextual to conceptual knowledge. The authors also flesh out how this shift could influence the new curriculum particularly with regard to developing effective scaffolding for engineering technology students. A useful tool for mapping these shifts in knowing is also established in this paper.

The most recent alteration in engineering technology education in South Africa is the establishment of the new Bachelor of Engineering Technology qualification. This qualification marks a paradigm shift in the nature of engineering technology education itself. In this paper, this paradigm shift is conceptualised. It is expected that the interpretation of the new qualification standards, and the influence of the shift in intended knower and exit-level outcomes on curriculum will be grappled with by engineering technology educators in South Africa in the coming years, as the new programmes are established around the country. This conceptual paper is significant because it marks the first work towards grappling these crucial and forthcoming issues in the country.