Daisy Pillay

Degrees Held

  • B.A. (U.H.D.E) University of Durban-Westville, 1982)
  • B.Ed (hons) UNISA, 1992
  • Masters in Teacher Education, University of Durban-Westville, 1998
  • Ph.D. Education, University of Durban-Westville, 2003

Interests

Selected

Publications

Community Engagement

M.Ed dissertation byJosphat Gamba Wafula- supervised by Prof L.Athiemoolam. Title: An artsbased comparative study of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of lecturers’ engagement with a humanising pedagogy. Nelson Madela University
• PhD by Ramona Budden. Title: Exploration of factors that inform curriculum Studies students to
use e-resources in conducting Masters of Education dissertations at a South African university.
Supervised by Dr S.B.Khoza. (UKZN)
• PhD by Marlene DeBeer. Title: “A visual and textual restoring of the diary of Susanna Cathrina
Smit (1799-1863)”University of Stellenbosch
• M.Ed Thesis by Cleopatra Ntombezinhle Mabaso. Title: Literacy Practices of English Second
Language First Year Students At A University Of Technology: A Narrative Inquiry
Supervised by Ansurie Pillay (UKZN)
• PhD by Clarence Nowellin Hendriks. Title: The views of Teachers on the influence of Quintile
based school categorisation on their professional identities: Implications for teaching and
learning.” Supervised by Prof Duku. University of Fort Hare
• M.Ed dissertation by Josphat Gamba Wafula- supervised by Prof L.Athiemoolam. Title: An artsbased comparative study of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of lecturers’ engagement with a
humanising pedagogy. Nelson Madela University
• PhD by Ramona Budden. Title: Exploration of factors that inform curriculum Studies students to
use e-resources in conducting Masters of Education dissertations at a South African university.
Supervised by Dr S.B.Khoza. (UKZN)
• 2018: M.Ed dissertation by Duduzile Queeneth Mthembu.Title: Facilitating creative writing
pedagogy with intermediate phase teachers: A subject advisor’s self –study. Supervised by Prof
Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan(UKZN).
• 2016: PhD by Devakumari Poovan. Title: Novice teachers’ discourses of teachers’ work.
Supervised by Prof Nyna Amin(UKZN).

Short title of project: Object Inquiry for Social Cohesion in Public Higher Education: Exploring Academic Identities and Fostering Shared Values Across Diverse Contexts.

Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN) Co-investigators: Inbanathan Naicker, Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (all UKZN) Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan,  For South African public higher education, social cohesion is a national priority. Academics within public higher education institutions have a responsibility to foster social cohesion. This proposed project will build on and expand prior research on object inquiry and academic identities to explore the applied and theoretical usefulness of objects in response to the national priority to act to increase social cohesion. The following research questions will guide the project: a. What can academics learn about personal and professional identities through object inquiry for social cohesion? b. How can object inquiry for social cohesion foster shared values and connections among academics in diverse contexts? c. What difference can object inquiry for social cohesion make to academics in public higher education?

Research outcomes:  Online Exhibition: An open-access virtual project exhibition has been cre= ated to store and display data and facilitate virtual conversations. The online exhibition can be accessed at: https://socialcohesionexhibition.ukzn.ac.za;  Special Guest Issue: Alternations Journal 2021:

Symposium and Visual Exhibition: Object Inquiry For Social Cohesion In Public Higher Education Symposium, Durban 8- 10 July 2019.

SHORT TITLE: Support for Local Scientific Events. Lead: Daisy Pillay together with Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan and Inbanathan Naicker Project name: “Not Just an Object”: Making Meaning of and from Everyday Objects in Educational Research.Funded by: The National Research Foundation (NRF).  Principal Investigator: Daisy PIllay (UKZN) Co-investigators: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Inbanathan Naicker (all UKZN).Nature of research: This project brings together local and international researchers and postgraduate students from multiple knowledge fields to a shared space in which subjects and objects, living and nonliving, entangle to open up understandings of the connections made between objects and the persons. The project aims to offer a way to rethink objects and subjects as interconnecting entities that can demonstrate the daily lived experiences of education and the objects used in personal and professional lives. Research outcomes: International research symposium, edited book.

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN Within the team of co-investigators, four are established academics with extensive experience in research project leadership, publications, and conference presentations (Prof. Pillay, Prof. Pithouse-Morgan, Dr Naicker, Prof. Chisanga). One of the female co-investigators is an African early career academic who is building her research profile (Dr Masinga). And another of the female co-investigators is an Indian early career academic who has recently graduated with a doctoral degree (Dr Hiralaal). The four experienced co-investigators will mentor these two emerging academics with respect to project management and facilitation, research, and publications.24 Nature of research: This project explored lived experiences of becoming and/or being an academic in relation to the pedagogic settings of twenty-first century universities in South Africa. It foregrounded higher education teaching through narratives of the academic self. Project: Inside Teaching: South African Academic Autoethnographies. Project leader: Dr Daisy Pillay- Coeditors: Dr Inbanathan Naicker and Dr Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan. Foreground higher education teaching through the academic. Each autoethnography will be a portrayal of first-person pedagogical reflections about being a teacher in South African higher education setting. The narratives will recount a series of life-changing, intellectual and emotional insights gleaned over   different socio-political eras in South Africa.

Funded by: The National Research Foundation (NRF). Principal Investigator: Daisy PIllay (UKZN) Co-investigators: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Inbanathan Naicker (all UKZN)

Nature of research: This project brings together local and international researchers and postgraduate students from multiple knowledge fields to a shared space in which subjects and objects, living and nonliving, entangle to open up understandings of the connections made between objects and the persons. The project aims to offer a way to rethink objects and subjects as interconnecting entities that can demonstrate the daily lived experiences of education and the objects used in personal and professional lives.Research outcomes: International research symposium, edited book.

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (UKZN) Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Inbanathan Naicker, Lungile Masinga, Thabo Msibi (all UKZN).Nature of research: This project aimed to enhance research capacity in the domain of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Participants were early career academics or ‘new scholars’ (permanently appointed tutors or lecturers who were within the first five years of appointment) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) who were interested in collaborating to share good practices and solve shared problems in higher education teaching and learning. These participants were located within diverse academic disciplines and colleges within UKZN and formed a trans-disciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning community, focused on developing innovative and responsive pedagogies and generating novel conceptualisations. Research outcomes: Conference presentations, scholarly publications, UTLO Seminar

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).

Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN) Co-investigators: Inbanathan Naicker, Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (all UKZN) Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan.This project explored lived experiences of becoming and/or being an academic in relation to the pedagogic settings of twenty-first century universities in South Africa. It foregrounded higher education teaching through narratives of the academic self.

Research outcomes: An edited book, a themed journal issue, conference presentations

Project: Inside Teaching: South African Academic Autoethnographies. Project leader: Dr
Daisy Pillay- Coeditors: Dr Inbanathan Naicker and Dr Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan.
Foreground higher education teaching through the academic. Each autoethnography will be a
portrayal of first-person pedagogical reflections about being a teacher in South African higher
education setting. The narratives will recount a series of life-changing, intellectual and
emotional insights gleaned over different socio-political eras in South Africa.

International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA) Higher Education Training and Development. University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Project leader: Damtew Teferra, Professor of Higher Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Co-investigators –Dr Daisy Pillay, Dr Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Reshma Subbaye, Rubby Dhunpath)

Project name: Memory & Teacher Development Studies
Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).
Principal Investigator: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (UKZN).Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay,
Jaqueline Naidoo, Marinda Swart (all UKZN)
Nature of research: Teacher Development Studies postgraduate students are researching
different aspects of memory-work, narrative inquiry and self-study, using visual and/or
language arts-based approaches. The UKZN researchers are conducting self-study research
into their supervisory practices. Research outcomes: Scholarly publications, conference
presentations, postgraduate degrees

Project name: Self-Reflexive Research Learning Community project. Funded by: The UKZN
University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Kathleen PithouseMorgan (UKZN).Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Nithi Muthukrishna, Lorraine Singh,
Inbanathan Naicker, Relebohile Moletsane, Linda Van Laren (all UKZN) Nature of research: The project brings together 14 PhD and Master’s students and 8
supervisors from the UKZN School of Education who are working with self-reflexive
research methodologies, such as self-study of practice, auto-ethnography and narrative
inquiry. Participants attend regular research support meetings and have an online community. The aim is to facilitate an in-depth and critical engagement with self-reflexive and arts-based methodological approaches. The supervisors are also involved in conducting self-study research into their supervisory practices Research outcomes: Scholarly publications,
conference presentations, postgraduate degrees.

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).

Principal Investigator: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (UKZN).Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Jaqueline Naidoo, Marinda Swart (all UKZN).Nature of research: Teacher Development Studies postgraduate students are researching different aspects of memory-work, narrative inquiry and self-study, using visual and/or language arts-based approaches. The UKZN researchers are conducting self-study research into their supervisory practices. Research outcomes: Scholarly publications, conference presentations, postgraduate degrees

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (UKZN).Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Nithi Muthukrishna, Lorraine Singh, Inbanathan Naicker, Relebohile Moletsane, Linda Van Laren (all UKZN)

Nature of research: The project brings together 14 PhD and Master’s students and 8 supervisors from the UKZN School of Education who are working with self-reflexive research methodologies, such as self-study of practice, auto-ethnography and narrative inquiry. Participants attend regular research support meetings and have an online community. The aim is to facilitate an in-depth and critical engagement with self-reflexive and arts-based methodological approaches. The supervisors are also involved in conducting self-study research into their supervisory practices Research outcomes: Scholarly publications, conference presentations, postgraduate degrees

Funded by: National Research Foundation (NRF) Principal Investigator: Labby Ramrathan (UKZN). Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Inbanathan Naicker, Siphiwe Mythiyane. The broad object of the study is to explore the potential influence that school categorisations have on the identity, ethos, performance and leadership and management of schools with a view to develop a deeper understanding of the complexities of the educational experience.

Research outcomes: Edited Book: Working Between The Folds: School Leaders’ Reimagining School Life, Nova Science Publishers; Scholarly publications, conference presentations, postgraduate degrees

  • Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).

Principal Investigator: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (UKZN) Co-investigators: Daisy Pillay, Inbanathan Naicker, Lungile Masinga, Thabo Msibi (all UKZN).Nature of research: This project aimed to enhance research capacity in the domain of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Participants were early career academics or ‘new scholars’ (permanently appointed tutors or lecturers who were within the first five years of appointment) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) who were interested in collaborating to share good practices and solve shared problems in higher education teaching and learning. These participants were located within diverse academic disciplines and colleges within UKZN and formed a trans-disciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning community, focused on developing innovative and responsive pedagogies and generating novel conceptualisations. Research outcomes: Conference presentations, scholarly publications, UTLO Seminar

Promoting research literacy development among postgraduate students through the integration of research literacy support groups into the Teacher and Education and Professional Development discipline Honours and Masters coursework programmes.

Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN)

Co-investigators: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Marinda, Swart (all UKZN)

Nature of research: This project sought to aid and promote research literacy development among postgraduate students specialising in Teacher Education and Professional Development (TEPD) through the integration of research literacy support groups into the TEPD Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons) and Master of Education (MEd) programmes in the School of Education and Development on the Edgewood campus. These support groups will were run by academic staff and co-facilitated by senior postgraduate students (at Masters and PhD levels) in the TEPD discipline

Research outcomes: Research literacy support materials

Project leader – Prof  Labby Ramrathan,  Daisy Pillay  and Sadhana Manik. The purpose of the study was to explore the phenomenon of student dropouts and academic exclusions within higher education institutions with a view to understanding this phenomenon within a transformational agenda.  Research outcomes: Scholarly publications, conference presentations

Funded by NRF and the Ford Foundation.

Lead researcher: Robert Balfour. Coinvestigators: Jenni Karlsson, Relebohile Moletsane, Daisy Pillay and Peter Rule. This national Project researches information about postgraduate educational research (PER) in South Africa conducted over a ten-year period, namely 1995-2004, being the first decade in the democratic era for South Africa.

RNA-NRF: Every Voice Counts Project: Study Area One: Reflexive methodologies in
studying teachers’ lives in the age of AIDS(2007-2011)
Activity: The study seeks to capture the diverse lives of rural teachers through selected teachers’
life stories will which provide a lens through which the ‘figurations’ of relationships that the
teachers are part of, as well as the contextual factors shaping their lives, may be viewed. The
types of issues that will be explored include community relations, commuting, living in rural
areas, exclusion and ostracisation, roles as community resource workers, roles as development
workers and the particular discourses and practices that teachers adopt in their responsibility
as teachers in rural schools.

Research Project: Exploring Internationalisation of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the enhancement of Knowledge Interchange within Africa. Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO). Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN).Co-investigators: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Inbanathan Naicker, Pholoho Morojele, Vitallis Chikoko (all UKZN)

Nature of research: The project focused on learning about Higher Education teaching and learning from local and international postgraduate students’ stories of experience at a South African university. The research involved visual and language arts-based approaches, such as collage, photo-voice and poetic inquiry. The researchers took a self-reflexive stance to consider the implications of these stories for their own pedagogic practices. Research outcomes: Scholarly publications, conference presentation

Project name: Promoting research literacy development among postgraduate students through
the integration of research literacy support groups into the Teacher and Education and
Professional Development discipline Honours and Masters coursework programmes
Funded by: The UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).
Principal Investigator: Daisy Pillay (UKZN)
Co-investigators: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Marinda, Swart (all UKZN)
2012.

NRF-Thutuka: Enhancing communication in linguistically diverse classrooms: Collaborator: Harsha Kathard (Speech and Hearing)-UCT; Daisy Pillay (Teacher Education)-UKZN; Mershen Pillay (Dubhai)

Support for Local Scientific
Events. Lead: Daisy Pillay together with Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan and Inbanathan Naicker

  • Multisite Teacher education Research Project. 1999 – 2003.(SA, Trinidad and Tabago,
    Malawi, Lesotho and Botswana) Funded by DFID and CIE(university of Sussex)
  • NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Faculty of Education
    Research Linkage Project 2005-2007
  • Linnaes Palme Linkage Programme Co-coordinator (South Africa) Staff and student
    exchange programme: University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden. 2004 – 2005.
  • Upward Bound Tracer Study Project (Phase One complete) 2005-2006. Institutional research.

Postgraduate Student

Supervision

Teaching Expertise

  • 2016 to present, University of KwaZulu-Natal, A/Professor, Teacher Development Studies
  • 2005–2015, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Senior Lecturer, Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education and Professional Development
  • 1999 – 2004, University of Durban-Westville, Permanent Lecturer, Lecturer in Integrated Art Education; Lecturer in Teacher Education and Professional Development
  • 1996–1998, University of Durban-Westville, Contract Lecturer, Lecturer in Integrated Art Education
  • 1983–1995, Department of Education, Educator, Visual Art teacher for 11 at the ML Sultan High School in Kwa Dukuza (Stanger) after teaching Art for two years at primary schools