ERIC Number: EJ1432137
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Mar
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0258-2236
EISSN: EISSN-2519-593X
On Violence in South African Higher Education: An Ideological Perspective
Perspectives in Education, v42 n1 p238-253 2024
South Africa is inherently a violent country. From the service delivery protests, rise in murder rates, gender-based violence, and an increasingly violent higher education sector; South Africans are increasingly feeling vulnerable and despondent about the future. In this paper, I attempt to provide a conceptual understanding of violence in higher education. Through Gramsci's idea of the organic crisis, I propose two kinds of violence that need urgent attention if we are to realise higher education transformation and decolonisation. Firstly, I propose a focus on what I see as the deeply embedded and well-entrenched epistemic violence in higher education. This violence operates at the level of curricula and knowledge production, and occasions the need to displace the dominance of Eurocentric thought in curriculum design. Secondly, I propose a focus on social violence, which operates at the discursive level of the institutional culture. This relates to the growing frustrations, anguish, and depression among Black academics and Black students who continue to see, read and experience higher education in South Africa as inherently anti-Black, anti-women, and increasingly anti-poor. I end the paper with some concluding thoughts on the need to adopt a broader conception of violence, and the epistemic/ontological/methodological possibilities this gives us in transforming the higher education sector in South Africa.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Higher Education, Violence, African American Students, Women Faculty, Diversity (Faculty), Decolonization, College Environment, Curriculum Development, Minority Group Students
University of the Free State Faculty of Education. P.O. Box 339, Bioemfontein 9300, South Africa. Tel: +27-51-401-2368; e-mail: PiE@ufs.ac.za; Web site: https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pie/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A