Biography

Professor Melanie Walker is distinguished professor in the Centre for Development Support, Economic and Management Sciences. She joined the UFS in February 2012 from the University of Nottingham, UK where she was professor of higher education, director of research and previous to that director of research students. Since 2013 she has held an NRF-funded research chair in  higher education and human development, and has led  internationally regarded research projects and capacity building for early-careers researchers from across sub-Saharan Africa. Some 30 doctoral students have graduated from her group since 2016 and these graduates have authored some 12 scholarly monographs to date, with more in the pipeline. This constitutes a significant knowledge contribution to the human development and higher education knowledge project and is being further advanced by graduates taking up posts in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Cameroon, Tanzania, South Africa, Glasgow, Lancaster, Kazakhstan and Missouri State University, and with CODESRIA. This contribution was recognized in 2024 by UFS with the award for excellence in research team leadership, and is being further strengthened through the British Academy grant to the SAVASS project (Supporting Early Career Researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2025-2027).

Her current capablitarian research turns on exploring integrated social and ecological flourishing and the contributions higher education can make to the formation of an ecological (planetary consciousness) capability among students (and staff), to the ontological design of institutions, and to the formation of `just transition` professionals. hery projects contribute coherently to our understanding of higher education as a space for decolonial work on equitable capabilities formation and dignity among diverse students, also developing voice-based methodology to produce a decolonial archive of participatory visual stories. The projects advance knowledge of how higher education enables or constrains wellbeing and the dynamic conversion conditions affecting comprehensive outcomes in higher education research. She theorizes equitable wellbeing opportunities, processes and achievements drawing on Sen’s ‘equality of what’ in open encounter with North and South conceptual frameworks, as well as what approaches might be more just (a non-ideal, comparative approach). Research themes include: epistemic justice, repair, planetary wellbeing, and participatory story-telling.

She is honorary professor at the University of Nottingham and research affiliate of the Laudato Si` Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She is past president of the Human Capability and Development Association and a lifetime fellow.  She is is a fellow of ASSAF and an A-rated NRF researcher since 2015. She has served terms as editor on a number of international peer referred journals, and she referees journal articles for a range of leading education journals, publishers’ book proposals and research proposals for science councils internationally.  She has published over 200 journal articles and book chapters and 16  authored, co-authored or edited books. She consistently appears in the top 2% of researchers internationally by citation. 

She has been the recipient of grants from the British Council, ESRC, DfiD, EU Commission, HEFCE (UK), the British Academy, STINT, EU Mobility 20+,  and the NRF.

Selected Publications since 2012

BOOKS ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND HIGHER EDUCATION/POLICY

Melanie Walker and Fenella Somervile (forthcoming 2027) Ecological Formation in and Through Higher Education: Activating Agency Towards Reparative ‘Planetary Consciousness

Melanie Walker, Alejandra Boni and Diana Velasco (eds). 2023. Reparative futures and transformative learning spaces. New York and London: Palgrave

Melanie Walker, M,. McLean, M,, Mathebula, M. and Mukwambo, P. (2022) Low-Income Students, and  Higher Education in South Africa:  Opportunities, obstacles and outcomes.  Stellenbosch: African Minds

Walker, M. and Boni, A. (eds). 2020. Participatory research, capabilities and epistemic justice. A transformative agenda for higher education. (Houndmills, Palgrave)

Otto, H-U, Walker, M. and Holger, Z. (eds) (2018) Capability-promoting policies: Enhancing individual and social development (Bristol, Policy Press)

Walker, M. and Wilson-Strydom, M. (eds) (2017) Socially Just Pedagogies, Capabilities and Quality in Higher Education (New York, Palgrave). [link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-55786-5]

 Walker, M. and Fongwa, S. (2017) Universities, Employability and Human Development (New York, Palgrave) [link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-58452-6]

 Boni A and Walker, M.  (2016) Universities, Development and Social Change: Theoretical and Empirical Insights (London and New York, Routledge)

 Walker, M. and McLean, M. (2013) Professional Education, Capabilities and the Public Good: The Role of Universities in Promoting Human Development (London and New York,  Routledge)

 Boni, A and Walker, M. (eds) (2013) Universities and human development. A New Imaginary for the University of the XXI Century  (London, Routledge)  Winner of Manuel Castilo Book Prize, Spain, May 2014

Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. (2007) (eds) Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education (New York, Palgrave) 275pp (second edition published in 2010)

Walker, M (2006) Higher Education Pedagogies: A Capabilities Approach  (Maidenhead: SRHE/Open University Press and McGraw-Hill)

OTHER BOOKS

Thomson, P and Walker M (eds) (2010) The Doctoral Student’s Companion (London, Routledge)

Walker M and Thomson, P. (eds) (2010) The Doctoral  Supervisor’s Companion (London, Routledge)

Walker, M. and Nixon, J. (2004) (eds) Reclaiming Universities from a Runaway World (Maidenhead: SRHE/Open University Press and McGraw Hill)

Walker, M. (2001) (ed) Reconstructing Professionalism in University Teaching: Teachers and Learners in Action (Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press)

Walker, M (1996) Images of Professional Development: Teaching, Learning and Action Research. (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council Press)

PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

Walker, M. and Somerville, F. (2025) Forming an eco-social capability in the South African higher education space, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities

Walker, M. (2025). Higher education and the public good as a repair project. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2531939

Mathebula, M., & Walker, M. (2025). Navigating ‘black tax’ and financial interdependence as a young person in South Africa. Journal of Youth Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2025.2518953

Walker, M. (2024). A Reparative Lens for Exploring Youth Aspirations in South African Universities. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 25(4), 595–615. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2024.2401015.

Walker, M. (2024). Repair in Education Spaces. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 25(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2023.2297917

**Walker, M., & Martinez-Vargas, C. (2024). How dignity matters for life and lifelong learning: insights from participatory story-telling by university students in South Africa. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 44(1), 57–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2024.2405543

Walker, M. (2024). Young People’s voices on social justice: a participatory storytelling and action learning approach. Educational Action Research, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2024.2412039

Walker, M. and Rawson, C. (2023) Forming lawyers who can contribute to equitable access to justice in South Africa, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Summer (online)

Walker, M. (2023) Towards just futures:  a capabilitarian approach to transforming undergraduate learning outcomes, Cambridge Journal of Education, 53 (4)

Walker, M. (2022) A Capabilitarian Approach to Decolonizing Curriculum, Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/17461979221123011

Walker, M. (2022) Sustainable development goals, higher education and capability-based outcomes, Third World Quarterly 43 (5): 997-1105 https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2039063

Walker, M. and Martinez-Vargas, C. (2022) Epistemic Governance and the Colonial Epistemic Structure: Towards Epistemic Humility and Transformed South-North Relations, Critical Studies in Education. 63 (5): 556-572 https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2020.1778052

Walker, M. (2020) Student decision-making about accessing university in South Africa, COMPARE. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2020.1785845

Gore, O. and Walker, M. (2020) Conceptualising (dis)advantage in South African higher education: a capability approach perspective. CriSTaL, 8(2). DOI:14426/cristalv.8i2.250

Walker, M. (2019) The well-being of South African university students from low-income households. Oxford Development Studies. Doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2019.1672143

Walker, M., Martinez-Vargas, C. and Mkwananzi, F. (2019) Participatory action research: towards (non-ideal) epistemic justice in a university in South Africa. Journal of Global Ethics https://doi.org/10.1080/17449626.2019.1661269

Walker, M. (2019) Defending the Need for a Foundational Epistemic Capability in Education, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 20 (2), 218-232. DOI.org/10.1080/19452829.2018.1536695

Walker, M. (2019) Why epistemic justice matters in and for Education, Asia-Pacific Education Review. DOI: 10.1007/s12564-019-09601-4

Martinez-Vargas, C., Walker, M. and Mkwananzi, F. (2019) Access to higher education in South Africa: expanding capabilities in and through an undergraduate photovoice project, Educational Action Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2019.1612767

Walker, M and Mathebula, M. (2019) Low-income rural youth migrating to urban universities in South Africa: opportunities and inequalities, COMPARE. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2019.1587705

Walker, M. (2019) The Achievement of University Access: Conversion Factors, Capabilities and Choices. Social Inclusion, 7 (1), 52–60. DOI.org/10.17645/si.v7i1.1615

Walker, M. (2018) Failures and possibilities of epistemic justice, with some implications for higher education. Critical Studies in Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2018.1474774

Walker M. (2018) Dimensions of the public good in South African higher education, Higher Education, 76 (3)pp 555-569

Walker, M. (2018) Aspirations and equality: gender in a South African university, Cambridge Journal of Education, 48 (1), 123-139

Walker, M. (2017) Political agency and capabilities formation through participatory action research, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities

Walker, M. and Loots, S. (2017) Transformative Change in Higher Education through Participatory Action Research: A Capabilities Analysis, Educational Action Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2017.1286605.

Mutanga, O. and Walker, M. (2017) Explorations of the lives of students with disabilities at South African universities: Lecturers’ perspectives, African Journal of Disability

Calitz, T., Walker, M. and Wilson-Strydom, M. (2017) Cultivating a capability approach to equal participation for undergraduate students at a South African university, Perspectives in Education

Loots, S. and Walker, M. (2016) A Capabilities-based Gender Equality Policy for Higher Education: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 17:2, 260-277

Loots, S. Tshepe, L. and Walker, M. (2016) Evaluating black women’s participation, development and success in doctoral studies; a capabilities perspective, South African Journal of Higher Education, 42, pp110-128

Boni, A., Fogues, A. and Walker, M. (2016) Higher education and the post-2015 agenda: a contribution from the human development approach, Journal of Global Ethics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449626.2016.1148757

Walker, M. (2016) Context, Complexity and Change: Education as a Conversion Factor for Non-Racist Capabilities in a South African University, Race, Ethnicity and Education. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2015.1095176

Walker, M. and Loots, S. (2016) Social Citizenship Formation at University: A South African Case Study, COMPARE, DOI:10.1080/03057925.2014.884920

Cin, M. and Walker, M. (2016) Reconsidering girls’ education in Turkey from a capabilities and feminist perspective, International Journal of Educational Development, 49, 134-143

Nguyen, T. and Walker, M. (2016) Sustainable assessment for lifelong learning, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education

Mutanga, O and Walker, M. (2015) Towards a Disability-inclusive Higher Education Policy through the Capabilities Approach, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, DOI:10.1080/19452829.2015.1101410

Loots, S. and Walker, M. (2015) A Capabilities-based Gender Equality Policy for Higher Education: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, DOI:10.1080/19452829.2015.1076777

Walker, M. (2015) Advancing student well-being and agency: the outline of a ‘capabilities-friendly’ approach, SAJHE, 29 (6)

Loots, S. and Walker, M. (2015) Informing an institutional gender equality policy in higher education: which human capabilities matter? Gender and Education, 27 (4), 361-375

Wilson-Strydom, M. and Walker, M. (2015) A capabilities-friendly conceptualisation of flourishing in and through education, Journal of Moral Education, Special Issue: Flourishing and Moral Development.44 (3): 310-324

Walker, M. (2015) Imagining STEM higher education futures: advancing human well-being, Higher Education, 70 (3): 417-425

Walker, M. and Mkwananzi, F. (2015) Theorising multiply disadvantaged young people’s challenges in accessing higher education, Perspectives in Education, 33 (1)

Walker, M. and Mkwananzi, F. (2015) Challenges in accessing higher education: a case study of marginalised young people in one South African informal settlement, IJED, 40:  40–49

Walker, M. (2015) Advancing student well-being and agency: the outline of a ‘capabilities-friendly’ approach, South African Journal of Higher Education, 29 (6)

Nguyen, T and Walker M. (2015) ‘Capabilities-friendly’ assessment for quality learning, South African Journal of Higher Education, 29 (4):244-260

East, L., Stokes, R. and Walker, M. (2014) Universities, the public good and professional education in the UK,  Studies in Higher Education,  39(9), 1617-1633.

Walker, M. (2013) Reconfiguring dualism and difference:  the (il)logic of theory/academic knowledge and development/practice in higher education research and practice,  South African Journal of Higher Education, 27, 4, 1054-1070

Cin, M. and Walker, M. (2013) A capabilities-based social justice perspective: three generations of west Turkish women teachers’ lives, International journal of Educational development, 33 (4): 394–404.

Walker, M. (2013) Reconfiguring dualism and difference:  the (il)logic of theory/academic knowledge and development/practice in higher education research and practice,  , 27, 4, 1054-1070

Walker, M. and Mclean, M. (2013) Operationalizing Higher Education and Human Development:  A Capabilities-Based Ethic for Professional Education, Journal of Education, 57, 11-30

Walker, M. (2012) Universities, professional capabilities and contributions to the public good in South Africa, Compare, 42 (6)pp819-838

Walker, M. (2012) Universities and a human development ethics: A capabilities approach to curriculum, European Journal of Education, 47 (3) pp448-461

Vaughan, R. and Walker, M. (2012) Capabilities, values and education policy, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 13 (3), pp495-512

Walker M. (2012) A Capital or Capabilities Education Policy Narrative in a World of Staggering Inequalities? International Journal of Educational Development, 32 (3) pp384-393

McLean, M and Walker, M.  (2012) The possibilities for university-based public-good professional education: a case-study from South Africa based on the ‘capability approach’, Studies in Higher Education, 37 (5) pp585-601

Research Summary

Her current research focuses on higher education, the expansion of student capabilities and contributions by universities to human development and eco-social justice in education and society. In particular she is concerned with equity, diversity, professional education, and curriculum and reparative pedagogies.

For the last 25 years, she has worked with human development ideas, with Amartya Sen’s capability approach (CA for evaluating well-being), as well as Nussbaum’s capabilities approach as a partial approach to justice’. Sen’s open-ended approach aligns well in drawing in complementary concepts and theories including epistemic justice, decoloniality, an ‘ecology of knowledges’, and ecological flourishing, all taken up directions in my own research and publications, together with development ethics.  His relational anthropology resonates with ubuntu but is limited in its application only to humans. Sen’s conceptualization of non-ideal and comparative education sits well with education, which cannot wait for perfection in policy or practices. All of the completed projects are informed by ideas from the capability approach and human development and all have sought to research  inequalities (structures and norms of professional education, social class/income, gender, race), and how they reproduce stratified and unequal higher education across getting in, getting on and getting out of higher education, but also transformative public-good possibilities. The latter may be through small steps, gestures, ideas, and educative processes - all play a part. Participatory methods have been included in all these projects. Thus, her work is shaped by concerns with real world injustices and the education practices that can sustain or dismantle such injustice in contexts where having a higher education can potentially reshape livelihoods and social mobility.  In brief my competed research projects include:

Sustainability Universities in South Africa (SUSA) 2023-2024, funded through the SARCHI chair. Working with two post-doctoral fellows and colleagues at the University of Pretoria, the project thus far has contributed to a seminar at UFS, a Panel at HDCA 2023, a seminar in Valencia. two working papers on the case study, and the first article which appeared in 2025. The project is part of a linked suite of three projects, with the second currently under way in 2025 and the third planned for 2025.  These will be discussed under future directions of my research. The assumption is that higher education is a critical space for advancing sustainability understood as both social and ecological justice in the face of the urgent ecological crisis which affects all our lives.  We conducted case studies at two universities interviewing leaders, managers, deans, lecturers, students and workers.  A participatory strand produced nine photo stories.

Youth Voices on Social Justice: A participatory digital storytelling project 2020-2021 funded through the SARCHI chair.  Working with post-doctoral fellow Carmen Martinez-Vargas, we explored face to face and then online how young people understood social justice using digital stories, participatory video and participatory spaces of knowledge co-creation. The project produced 12 digital stories and two participatory videos, we held a webinar for youth and one for the HDCA and published one book chapter and two articles, as well as presenting papers at the International Development Ethics Association Conference in 2022 and SRHE in 2024. Students’ ideas were categorised into a social injustice map of bottom-up, co-created knowledge.  The process revealed what we might understand as a capability for fairness as crucial for youth contributions to public values and just societies.

Making public interest lawyers: the contribution of universities to reparative futures, January 2021-December 2021. Funded through the SARCHI Chair. Working with lawyer Chris Rwason from the UFS egal Aid Office, this project set out to build from the earlier project on public-good professionals (see Walker and Mclean 2013) to investigate the processes – biographical, structural and educational – that form the capabilities and values of public interest lawyers, with emphasis on the role of university education to reparative futures and reparative higher education. We interviewed 15 candidate lawyers from five legal aid clinics to understand the formation of their professional capabilities and professional values. The project led to a journal article and a conference paper.

Inclusive (achieved) higher education learning outcomes for rural and township youth: developing multi-dimensional capabilities- based higher education Index (2016-2020) [‘Miratho’ project]. The project was funded by ESRC-DfID and aimed are to investigate how complex biographical, socio-economic, policy, and educational factors enable or inhibit pathways for rural and township youth to get in, get on, and get out of undergraduate higher education into further study or work, in terms of ‘learning outcomes’ achieved;  and to produce a  normative multidimensional higher-education capabilities dashboard. We considered how the capabilities approach can be applied analytically to multiple data sets and how this can used to inform policy and practice interventions that confront the structural inequalities impacting on learning outcomes of students from challenging contexts. Data included: 1) Life history interviews. Four annual waves (64 students) at five universities. 2) Participatory strand: nineteen photo voice photobooks and one common photobook (data includes training workshops, field notes, river of life drawings, interviews, UFS workshop, video a materials, two short videos). 3) Survey: a) pilot survey designed and trialled among 41 Miratho students, b) then roll out of survey to all final year students at one university. 4) Secondary data sets (HEMIS cohort, rural, township, suburban students) and StatsSA and Household Survey data by national, 3 provinces (Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal) and three districts (Joe Qwabi, Vhembe, Harry Gwala). An open access book of the project was published by African Minds alongside various articles.

Universities, employability and inclusive development (2013-2016). Funded by the British Council and lead by Tristan McCowan at UCL, with myself as lead South Africa researcher, the project researched graduate employability and the role of universities in four sub-Saharan African countries, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The research drew on national statistics and policy documents. It selected four universities in each country for in-depth case studies, collecting perspectives of stakeholders at the national and university levels, including policy makers, employers, faculty, university managers and students. The South Africa case study yielded five conference papers, an invited seminar at Bath University in 2016, four public engagement events in South Africa and a book published by Palgrave in 2017. Simon McGrath (Glasgow) commented that the book is ‘very carefully theorised, draws on its data with fidelity and love, speaks powerfully to policy and practice…the insistence that employability must be viewed through a justice lens is invaluable both theoretically and practically’.

Pathways to personal and public good: understanding access to, student experiences of, and outcomes from South African undergraduate higher education (2016-2018). This international partnership project funded by ESRC-NRF and led by Paul Ashwin (Lancaster) and Jenni Case (UCT) asked in what ways access to undergraduate education has a transformative impact on societies, what conditions are required for this impact to occur, and what are the pathways from an undergraduate education to the public good? The work rested on a conceptualisation of undergraduate HE as comprising three aspects: access, experience of students within the system, and the impact these students have on society after graduation. The partnership brought together leading and emerging higher education researchers from South Africa, the UK and internationally. I was CI and one of the co-ordinators of the Access theme. The project culminated in a conference in Cape Town in November 2018, and an open access book published by African Minds.

Access: Aspirations, choices and opportunities (2017-2018). Funded by the SARChI chair, this project arose out of the paucity of research on access revealed in the ‘Pathways’ project. The aim was to understand the underlying complexities of higher education decision-making, choices and admissions processes by diverse students from different quintile schools. The project also sought to understand key points when aspirations and career choices are shaped, and what influenced the process of decision-making at different stages. Two interlinked projects were developed: 1) a qualitative interview project which generated 54 in-depth student interviews; and 2) a participatory photo voice project working with 11 ‘access’ students to produce their own visual accounts of access and its challenges. Nussbaum’s ‘combined capabilities’ was used to interrogate inequalities in the data from which seven intersecting contextual conditions and three multi-dimensional capabilities emerged to shape agency and conditions of choice. The interpersonal comparisons revealed a picture of unfair access and the need for change. The interview project generated a book chapter and two articles, and the photo voice project two co-authored articles and a conference paper.

Gender, empowerment and agency in higher education` [GEAHE] (2013-2016). Funding came from the SARChI chair. The aim was to understand the development of diverse women’s well-being and agency over time, and the specific contribution made by their university education, while also asking what barriers stood in the way of their full human development. The project used mixed methods. Data included qualitative interviews, a survey and a participatory research project on the QwaQwa campus of UFS. The project had generated 6 journal articles, 3 book chapters, 9 conference papers, a colloquium (May 2014), a policy brief, and two student led-dissemination events.

EDUWEL, 2010-2013, an EU-funded project, which  brought together 16 university and non-university partner institutions from 10 countries and early stage researchers investigating a common theme ‘Enhancing opportunities for socially vulnerable youth in Europe’. The consortium was led by the University of Bielefeld.  After my move to UFS in 2012, UFS was included as a partner for the final two years of the project. The research programme looked at why and how young persons in Europe are increasingly experiencing social disqualification and disaffiliation after compulsory schooling, with education regarded as a primary means to tackle this development. The scientific objective was to identify factors with which to extend young people`s opportunities and capabilities in work, autonomy and participation. Outputs included a special issue of an online journal, a body of 15 capabilities research studies by the doctoral fellows, and findings presented to European policy makers in Brussels in June 2013.

Development Discourses 2007-2009 funded by ESRC-DfiD.  I have included tis project with Monica Mclean partly because of the excellent book that resulted but also because I continue to draw on these ideas and build from them in later projects. The normative position taken, project examined how universities in five professional l across three South African universities were educating professionals with the knowledge, awareness and social values for operationalizing inclusive public service, even though universities cannot be held wholly accountable for graduates’ actual public-good choices once they leave university. It generated a capabilities-based matrix of ‘public-good’ professional capabilities and functionings.  The work has been widely disseminated through international conferences and seminars and various articles as well as a book.