A significant amount of South African literature on academic development often focuses on the ideological and theoretical shifts that have occurred within the academic development field across different periods in the country – tracing different phases within the field, broadly termed, ‘academic support’, ‘academic development’ and ‘higher education development’. One of the gaps that have been identified in this literature is often the silence regarding the experiences of the black students themselves in academic development, and to what extent being in the programme has made a difference to their university experiences. This article attempts to fill this gap by critically exploring and theorising the complex experiences of black working-class South African students in an academic development programme in a historically white higher education institution. To effectively make sense of their experiences, French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on capital was employed in this article. Participants were purposely recruited using snowball sampling and 32 black working-class students participated in the study. The findings of this study suggest that academic development in a historically white university is a complex field of forces that require further critical interrogation and theorisation. Students’ experiences of academic development are often complex and at times contradictory with some seeing the value of the programme, and others rejecting it and looking at it as an extension of their marginality in a historically white higher education institution.

中文翻译：

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边缘观点：在一所历史悠久的南非白人大学中，将黑人工人阶级学生的学术发展经验理论化

大量有关学术发展的南非文献通常着眼于该国不同时期在学术发展领域内发生的意识形态和理论转变–追踪该领域内的不同阶段，广泛地称为“学术支持”，“学术”发展”和“高等教育发展”。该文献中发现的差距之一通常是对黑人学生自身在学术发展中的经历保持沉默，以及该计划在何种程度上对他们的大学经历产生了影响。本文试图通过在具有历史意义的白人高等教育机构的一项学术发展计划中批判性地探索和理论化南非黑人工人阶级学生的复杂经验，来填补这一空白。为了有效地理解他们的经验，本文采用了法国哲学家皮埃尔·布尔迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的资本理论。使用雪球采样特意招募了参与者，有32名黑人工人阶级学生参加了研究。这项研究的结果表明，一所历史悠久的白人大学的学术发展是一个复杂的领域，需要进一步的批判性审问和理论化。学生的学术发展经验通常很复杂，有时与某些人看到该计划的价值相矛盾，