The Tygerberg Children's Choir (TCC) is rooted in South Africa's Afrikaner culture. Its transition to a multicultural children's choir, within a drastically changed political dispensation, furnished a rich subject for a historiographic choir identity investigation. From its establishment in 1972 until 2019, Hendrik D. Loock was the conductor.…

This article focuses on the role of access to music education as an agent of social change and as an important way of empowering previously disadvantaged learners, putting this forward as an argument against the proposed downscaling of music in schools as advocated by the government. This narrative inquiry shed light on the perceptions of…

In this article we focus on constraints to post-apartheid transformation in the higher education sector of South Africa via a case study of an attempt to introduce a new curriculum for the Bachelor of Education. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were the main data-gathering method. We use Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, habitus…

The idea of using values as a means of guiding our research decisions and judging the validity of our claims of knowledge is well established in literature on the self-reflective genre of action research. Values in action research should always result in virtuous behaviour--to promote the general social good. However, ideas of what constitutes the…

Teachers are the curriculum implementers in the classroom, which can become either a constraining or transformative environment. In this article Bourdieu's notion of habitus is appropriated to illustrate the transformative potential of the teacher in the classroom. Paulo Freire's problem-posing education is also utilised as it opens up the space…

This article is a narrative analysis of one young boy's encounter with his schooling across the rural and urban landscape. It is set against the backdrop of the changing social reproductive context of education in South Africa in the democratic period. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews, the analysis probed the subjective basis on which this…

We focus on the impact of societal change and related societal problems on the youth of post-apartheid South Africa. Within the parameters of an eco-systemic model, it is argued that adolescents' perspectives on their future in this country could be negatively influenced by the extent of societal problems that are currently experienced in South…

The authors assessed the emergence of a South African identity among Black, Colored (mixed ancestral origin), White (predominantly English speaking), and Indian adolescents participating in a birth cohort study called "Birth to Twenty" in Johannesburg, South Africa. They examined young people's certainty of their self-categorization as…

This article gives an ethnographic glimpse of how an urban South African school mirrored a community's sense-making during times of rapid social change. The glimpse is extracted largely from an ethnography that was composed in 2000. In this study of school life, the biennial play was central to the year's activities. In the play the tone, content…

In this essay, Chaya Herman explores the interaction between two powerful global dynamics that have affected educational institutions and society at large: one is neoliberalism, with its attendant notions of marketization and managerialism; the other is the resurgence of ethnic and religious, often fundamentalist, communities in the search for…

Social movements in South Africa, often organized around class-related issues, provide rich material to illustrate how class, intertwined with other social categories, shapes organizational and educational practices.

Outlines the character of the teaching profession and its main forms of organization since the 1970s in South Africa. Discusses teachers' work under apartheid, the challenges to apartheid controls from 1989-1994, and restructuring of teachers' work in the post-apartheid period. Examines teachers' responses, focusing on policies that impacted…

Surveyed South Africans to document the status of and need for early childhood care and education. Found that families and community members who previously responded to young children's needs can no longer do so due to social and economic dynamics. Also found training, training centers, infrastructure, and integration of African culture in…

This paper examines the life history narratives of a group of 12 black and white male and female undergraduate students at a historically white Afrikaans medium university, now undergoing its own transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Conceptualizations of identity and discourse across four elements of context, setting, situated activity…

Discusses social change and educational realities in South Africa, noting the relatively poor qualifications of black teachers. The paper also examines South African teacher training models and presents teacher training models suitable for developing countries. (SM)