n South African Journal of Higher Education - Listening to voices of the voicesless : a critical consciousness for academic industrial complex

Abstract

This article explores the praxis that informs higher education, and how students with special educational needs make sense of their experiences concerning higher education. The discourse that this article challenges is oppression, inequalities, exclusion and marginalization of students with SEN. This article also creates a forum of amplification for voices of the voiceless. The article operationalises the theory of discourse analysis.

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A theoretical framework adopted in this article views marginalization or exclusion, as a serious threat to any academic industrial complex in the world. The methodological disposition that broadly informs this study is post-structural theories and further employs deconstruction as a strategy for interpreting and analyzing data. Deconstruction is a strategy for revealing the under-layers of meanings in a text that were suppressed. Findings in this study could empower SEN students. I have come to realize that empowerment is not a gift of the powerful, but something that the excluded and dominated collectively provide for themselves.