Leonard Misana

Topic

From Meaning-Making to Life Sustaining: A Narrative Ethnography of Students’ Out-of-school Daily Practices

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Date & location

• Monday, June 29, 2026

• 9:30 A.M.

• Clearihue Building, Room B007

• and Virtual Defence

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Kathy Sanford, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Tanya Manning-Lewis, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, UVic (Member)

• Dr. Doris Kakuru, School of Child and Youth Care, UVic (Outside Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Bekisizwe Ndimande, Department of Interdisciplinary Learning & Teaching, University ofTexas at San Antonio 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Tim Hopper, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, UVic

   

Abstract

Students’ out-of-school daily practices play a central role in shaping their lives, yet literacy centred frameworks often marginalize them. This study examines how these practices relate to academic learning and personal development in a rural secondary school in Ukerewe District, Tanzania. Guided by an interpretivist paradigm, I conducted a narrative ethnography with 10 participants: 4 students, 4 parents, and 2 teachers. I collected data through ethnographic conversations, focus group discussions, and participant observation, and analyzed them using reflexive thematic analysis. I used the multiliteracies framework to examine how students use different media in their out-of-school practices to make meaning and construct identities within their cultural contexts. Throughout the study, I worked within the Heshima framework, an ethical Afrocentric approach to engaging with Black people and people of African descent. The findings show that students engage in a wide range of out-of-school practices, including household and economic work, academic activities, and arts and sports. Schools tend to value academic activities, such as remedial classes and private tutoring, as the primary route to academic success. In contrast, farming, animal care, and domestic work, despite meeting survival needs, care responsibilities, and community obligations, are often viewed as detrimental to schooling. While the findings indicate that this hierarchy is shaped by pressures associated with high-stakes examinations, I argue that it is also shaped by the fact that the purposes and values of students’ out-of-school practices remain under-theorized. While the multiliteracies framework effectively explains meaning-making across modes and contexts through design, representation, and identity, my analysis suggests that it is less suited to explaining practices organized primarily around survival, care, and the everyday sustenance of life. To address this gap, I propose a theory of Life-Sustaining Practices (LSP). Drawing on social practice theory, social reproduction theory, and decolonial thought, LSP conceptualizes everyday practices as grounded in material conditions, shaped by relationships, and guided by ethical responsibilities. This theory explains practices where survival and care come first while meaning-making and design come second.