Nazir Carrim

Anti-racism and the 'New' South African Educational Order.

Abstract> This article traces the desegregation of South African schools, particularly within the Gauteng region, from 1990 to 1996. It argues that there is a discernible shift from ‘race’ to ethnicity in the educational discourses of South Africa and that at school level the response to ethnicity has been predominantly assimilationist. Attempts to move towards a more multicultural way of operating are affected by conceptions of identity as stereotyped, homogenised and generalised, leading to ‘bad’ multicultural approaches being adopted. Simultaneously, within official enunciations at national level, a consistent anti‐racist stance is emphasised in order to ‘redress’ apartheids legacies. I argue that such initiatives are limited due to their structurally functionalist underpinnings and their failure to address the complexity of identities contained within the classifications of ‘black’ and ‘white’. I argue that, on both the macro and the micro level, questions of identity and difference are central in de...

Inclusiveness and participation in discourses of educational governance in South Africa

The abolition of apartheid has, for the first time, made it possible for South Africa to enter into discourses of inclusiveness on all levels of society: constitutionally, legislatively and in terms of policies and processes of implementation. Given the white supremacist and exclu‐sivist nature of apertheid, current transformation processes are explicitly aimed at redressing the imbalances and inequities caused by apartheid iself. The new Constitution of the Republic of South Africa is a clear testimony to this. Given the inclusiveness of the new Constitution, current legislations, policies and mechanisms of and for implementation attempt to realize such inclusiveness in the actual lives of all South Africans, across all social spheres. This paper focuses particularly on the educational sphere and analyses the extent to which the recently (1996) adopted South African Schools Act (SASA) is inclusive, how it frames inclusiveness and problems and prospects within it. Using SASA as the basis for our discussio...

Academic Support and Transforming Knowledge Systems: the case of South African education in transition [1]

ABSTRACT This paper deconstructs a particular pedagogical experience the author had with a black, male South African student in the context of an academic support programme (ASP) at a predominantly white, English‐speaking university in Johannesburg, South Africa. The first part of the paper provides a social analysis of ASPs in order to explain why it is that the author and Hani, the student, got to find themselves in the situations they did and experienced them in ways they did. Using this interaction, the author then argues that Hani was violated symbolically in the institution, but through ASP he was equipped with the requisite kind and level of cultural capital in order to succeed. Rather than transforming knowledge systems, giving Hani access to the dominant cultural capital reinforced and reproduced it. On the basis of this, the author argues that future educational changes in the new South African order, will, in all likelihood, maintain the existing cultural capital frames of knowledge systems. [1...

Stuart Hall and Education: Being Critical of Critical Pedagogy

This chapter focuses on the impact of the theoretical contribution of Stuart Hall on education. It begins by outlining the importance of understanding the social construction of processes of domination and subordination, and the significance of working together with the macro-sociological and micro-sociological forces which impact on people’s lives and construct relations of dominance and sub-ordinance. In pursuing the social constructions of power relations in societies, this chapter also indicates the non-essentialism and non-reductionism that is central to Hall’s conception of social reality. The second part of this chapter looks at the notion of relationality which is key to understanding the ways in which social relations are configured. In looking at relationality, this chapter also focuses on the intersections between different forms of identities and shows how they intersect with each other and construct complex forms of human identities and experiences. The importance of non-reductionist thinking is also highlighted in this regard. In the final section of this chapter, focus is placed on Hall’s later theory of articulation which brings together both the conceptions of social construction and relationality in understanding social phenomena. In this regard, the theory of articulation is also shown to be of tremendous value on ontological, methodological and epistemological levels. Of particular importance throughout this chapter is the generative and useful ways in which Hall’s views are significant to teaching and learning.

REALISING THE DREAM: UNLEARNING THE LOGIC OF RACE IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL

Realising the dream can be read in many ways. As its subtitle indicates, it is about the ‘logic of race’ and it is about ‘the South African school’. As also indicated in the subtitle it is also about ‘unlearning the logic of race in the South African school’. As such, Realising the dream can be read as being about ‘race’ and racism, South Africa, South Africans, South African schooling and about ‘un/learning’. Whilst I think it is appropriate to want to read Realising the dream in these ways, I want to suggest in this review of the book that Realising the dream is about more – much, much more. Realising the dream is not just about ‘realising the dream’ of a non-racial South Africa. Neither is it only about schooling ‘new’ South Africans into a ‘new logic’ that transcends ‘race’ and racism. Nor is it only about understanding the ‘logic’ of discrimination and how it may be acquired, and subsequently, ‘unlearnt’. Realising the dream is about all of these but it is about much more. Realising the dream is about the complexities, contradictions, dynamism and forces that construct all of us as human beings. Realising the dream is about the struggles of being, becoming and living as human beings, in all its multifaceted layers of complexity and enigmatic dynamism – as we live, become, be, know and move through time while

Human Rights and the Limitations of Releasing Subaltern Voices in a Post-Apartheid South Africa

Postcoloniality and the achievement of human rights in South Africa mark the transition to a post-apartheid society. The denial and violation of human rights of particularly “black” South Africans under apartheid has placed the provision and protection of human rights centrally in the defi nition of a post-apartheid, “new” South Africa. Policy and administrative changes in education underscore this. The Preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa reads as follows: