An ethnography of developing a social practice approach to adult literacies in Rwanda

This PhD is linked to the “Fostering a Social Practice Approach to Adult Literacies for Improving People’s Quality of Life in Western Rwanda” Project. A core element of the project is building capacity in Rwanda to implement a social practices approach to adult literacies. This will be done by University of Aberdeen team working with a team of academics from the University of Rwanda’s, College of Education, to develop a social practice approach to literacies professional development programme and building the capacity of adult literacies tutors. There will be ongoing collaboration between the literacies tutors, the teams from the University of Aberdeen and the College of Education, University of Rwanda.

The main project is a four and half-year collaboration involving capacity building of teacher educators and tutors at Teacher Training Colleges in Western Rwanda to implement adult literacies courses. The Government of Rwanda identified the Western Province of Rwanda as an area of immediate need for the implementation of the project. To address the identified challenge in literacy in Western Rwanda, we have proposed an adult literacies project drawing from a social practices approach, which would build the capacity of the Rwandan education sector to respond to the needs of adult learners. There is currently training for teachers for primary and secondary level schooling but none for adult education.

The project involves developing and sustaining an adult literacies personnel - through professional development and ongoing support - who will work with adult learners in ways which enable them to develop the literacies practices required to thrive in a contemporary developing society, as required by the Rwanda Adult Education Policy 2014. The project will contribute to Rwanda’s stride towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 by, ensuring that “a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women [in Western Rwanda], achieve literacy and numeracy”.

In terms of research on the project, a mixed methods approach involving surveys and qualitative ethnography (interviews and observations) will be utilised. Project stakeholders such as educators from the College of Education, adult literacies tutors from Teacher Training Colleges, adult learners, among others, will provide data at different stages of the project implementation. The overall project research aims at understanding how people use social literacies in their lives and how literacies capacity improves the quality of people’s lives. We will also be researching the actual process of developing and implementing the project in Western Rwanda.

The PhD student will be expected to use an ethnographic approach using participant observation, in-depth interviewing, focus group discussions and other data collected by the project team to explore the development and implementation of the programme. The focus will be on how the social practices to literacies approach translates into the Rwanda content. This will include how the programme is developed, how the literacies tutors implement the courses/projects and the experiences of learners.

Applicants are strongly advised to contact the Supervisor to discuss the project in advance of submitting a formal application.

• Candidates should apply for a PhD place in the normal way, stating:
o ‘Elphinstone PhD Scholarship’ in the Intended Source of Funding section
o The name of the lead supervisor in the Name of Proposed Supervisor section
o The title of the specific research project (subject to any agreed modifications in discussion with the lead supervisor) in the Outline Summary section
o Within their project proposal, how they intend to address the specific project title.