Ursula Hoadley

The Reproduction of Social Class Inequalities through Mathematics Pedagogies in South African Primary Schools.

It has long been clear that the school reproduces social class differences. However, how this happens remains something of a black box. I set out to contribute to our understanding of schooling processes and the reproduction of inequality by focusing on pedagogy. I elaborate a technique for the analysis of classroom observation and student performance data that is rooted in sociological theory. The purpose is to develop an analytic framework capable of capturing a wide variation in pedagogic practice, and show the implications of this variation for student learning. The focus is on how the structuring of social relations relates to the structuring of knowledge, and what the implications of this are in terms of how children of different social‐class positions are socialized into school ways of knowing, or the ‘school code’. I address the equity debate in mathematics education and schooling more generally, by showing how inequalities are reproduced through pedagogy. The focus here relates to broader debates on the relation between everyday knowledge and school knowledge in mathematics.

Managing to learn: instructional leadership in South African secondary schools

This article reports on an empirical study of the management of curriculum and instruction in South African secondary schools. Drawing on data collected from 200 schools in 2007, a series of regression analyses tested the relationship between various dimensions of leadership and student achievement gains over time. Whilst the research confirms what we do know about school management in South Africa, and aligns with much of the international research base, the strong emphasis that emerges on school–community relations offers important insights for school management development.

What do we know about teaching and learning in South African primary schools

Abstract This article reports the findings of a review of classroom-based studies in order to discern what the existing knowledge base around teaching and learning is in South African primary schools. Educational research on classrooms has been criticised on a number of grounds, including the fact that it is generally small-scale, qualitative and that it lacks methodological rigour. Although these criticisms would appear to be valid, and there certainly are methodological limitations to the majority of these studies, this article highlights two strengths of the literature when viewed cumulatively. The first is that there is a remarkable consistency across studies regarding what is going on (and generally going wrong) in classrooms. The second is that the research has recently begun to identify very specific features or dimensions of classroom practice, which appear to affect student learning. In other words, the research has moved a long way from broad characterisations, such as ‘learner-centred’ and ‘tea...

Social class and pedagogy: a model for the investigation of pedagogic variation

This article addresses an enduring concern in the sociology of education: how social class differences are reproduced through schooling. In particular it focuses on the functioning of pedagogy in this regard. The article presents a model that elucidates the inner logic of pedagogy in order to reveal the structuring of inequality with respect to different groups of students. Theoretical concepts are drawn from the work of Bernstein, Dowling (1998) and Pedro (1981). An analysis considering the relay of social class differences, what is relayed, and its organizational form is undertaken with respect to working class and middle class children learning literacy in a sample of South African primary schools.

Boundaries of care: the role of the school in supporting vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS

This paper is a response to a growing vision of schools as sites of care and support for vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The aim is to interrogate this notion and to raise some key issues in considering the role of schools in the context of the epidemic. The paper is based on two research activities. The first was a desk review of projects working in the area of schools in the context of HIV/AIDS and poverty, including a review of the policies underlying these initiatives. The second was the documentation of a particular project in a province of South Africa. The paper begins by outlining some major education policies in South Africa related to the care and support of vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The paper then offers three cautionary notes in relation to the thrust of these policies and those programmes attempting to implement them. The first suggests consideration of the context of implementation — the schooling system. The second recommends consideration for resourcing these policies, which is looked at through a case study. The third note considers the policy visions of schools and teachers: how schools and teachers are conceptualised both in policies and programmes is problematised. The misalignment between the policies around schools and vulnerable children, the resourcing of these policies, and their contexts of implementation is brought into relief, as well as the implications for thinking about expanded roles for schools and teachers. The paper offers possible ways forward in considering the role of schools in the context of HIV and AIDS. These include new ways of thinking about resourcing, proper monitoring and evaluation of projects, and a focus on quality teaching and learning.

Tribes and Territory: Contestation around Curriculum in South Africa

The field of curriculum studies in South Africa is characterized by fragmentation, diversity of method, theory and approach, and the seeming intransigence of certain divisions within the field. Though this phenomenon is not peculiar to South Africa, there appear to be certain dynamics that are mediated by our particular history. And there are others that are about how curriculum and knowledge are understood. In this chapter I attempt to give an account of these divergences. The account that I give is, however, partial and does not represent a comprehensive view of the field of curriculum studies in South Africa. Rather, I am interested in divisions that appear to emerge along institutional lines. In the formerly racialized system of Apartheid education, universities were created for White, Black, Colored, and Indian racially defined groups. White universities were divided into two: those for Afrikaners and those for English speakers. In many ways, these historical divides defined the nature of the scholarship and teaching in different institutions.

Michael Young and the curriculum field in South Africa

The paper addresses the question of what we should make of Michael Young’s recent work with respect to curriculum theory by considering the particular case of South African curriculum reform. The paper thus traces two trajectories: the evolution of Michael Young’s ideas over time and South African curriculum reform in the post-apartheid period. The paper shows how the two trajectories have run in parallel, not least because of Young’s ongoing involvement and interest in South Africa. Three broad periods in Young’s career are identified: the new sociology of education period; a middle period where he engaged in substantial policy work, focusing predominantly on the relation between schooling and the economy; and his social realist phase, where much of his work has focused on an educational notion of specialized knowledge: ‘powerful knowledge’. The possibilities and limitations of this notion as it has been taken up in the research literature, and in relation to the South African case, are explored.

Specialization and school organization: investigating pedagogic culture

Drawing on Bernstein’s notion of pedagogic culture or the ‘mode of being’ of the school, this paper develops and uses a theoretical framework for the analysis of school organization that draws attention to specialization of instructional practice. An understanding of the ordering principles of the school emerges from the analysis, fundamentally understood as relations of power and control in the school as an organization. The paper considers how the ordering principles of the school are related to differential performance. The framework is deployed in an analysis of six primary schools located in poor communities in South Africa.