Crossing from violence to nonviolence: pedagogy and memory

This qualitative case study addresses the use of memories of violence in a workshop withten young student leaders in Durban. The pedagogy included the use of guidelines andgender-based groups as ways of enabling safety. A particularly direct discussion of genderand its relationship to violence followed, though violence in relation to other socialidentities was also explored. Walkerdine’s work (2006) on border crossing is used toanalyse the data from the records of discussion and evaluation comments. The argument isthat such a pedagogy enabled participants to address some of the sedimented connectionsthat held them to relationships based on violence. Generally, if we understand violence ascaught up in social identities, work on memories of violence will require attention todynamics related to the identities present. While gender’s relation to violence is central inthis context, further cases in which the pedagogy is structured around other social identitieswould extend our understanding

Agency, resilience and innovation in overcoming educational failure

This study seeks to understand how a group of boys in a Durban township achieved exceptional educational results despite the severe financial, social and educational constraints they faced. Their high school typified the worst failings of the South African educational system, but they achieved academic success in the matriculation and at university. Using resilience theory as a framework, it seeks to explore the strategies employed by the group and assesses the nature of their resilience. The group formed from a recognition that they were failing in their education. They responded by developing both individual and collective strategies to guide their learning. The strategies consisted of individual study, the debating of problems in their group, using whatever extra classes were available, locating material resources and taking on tutoring and teaching roles. The study draws on a series of interviews, focus group discussion and documentary evidence over the period 2011 to 2018. A thematic analysis of the data identifies four key themes: (1) Education and society have failed us (2) Responding to failure, we develop strategies and we appropriate resources (3) “Learning is within our blood” and (4) Our success. The only possible advantage the group enjoyed over their peers was that their families valued their education. In the process they developed confidence in their deep understanding of the subjects they studied and in their own intellectual capacity. It is argued that the principles they developed hold within them the potential for ongoing transformation of the systems that disadvantaged them. The significance of this study is that it demonstrates the need for officials, principals and teachers to value and support the capacity of young people in African contexts to achieve the fullest grasp of disciplinary knowledge

Education for the "African child": Distant illusion?

One of the key features of post-apartheid South Africa has been an ongoing debate around access to quality education. Educational policy experts have decried what they have often termed a “dysfunctional” schooling system that fails to prepare students adequately for independent thinking and future life prospects. Prominent amongst the circulating debates have been important, yet peripheral issues such as resources, curriculum change and general inequality, forgetting the very real and systematic ways in which racial ideological thinking came to drive education in South Africa during apartheid

Youth as research fieldworkers in a context of HIV/AIDS

What are the strengths and limitations of using out-of-school youths as researchers in a study of the relationships among young people of the same group? While youth-to-youth research approaches have increased in both popularity and practice, our understanding of the processes and mechanisms underlying the successes or failures of ‘peer researchers’ is still developing. The study addresses the question through qualitative research, drawing on observations of the process of training out-of-school youths as research fieldworkers, reflections on the interviews with respondents, and focus group discussions with the young fieldworkers. We found striking advantages to using fieldworkers who are close in their characteristics to that of respondents: these included ready access to respondents, the immediate use of language appropriate to the respondents, and an ability to swiftly establish rapport. We also observed striking limitations: the peer researchers struggled with the wish of some respondents to establish supportive friendships with them, they lacked the authority of an academic researcher, and they sometimes resorted to false promises in attempts to get cooperation. The main conclusion drawn is that, in principle, using youths as peer researchers is neither better nor worse than using professional researchers, but each approach can produce its own challenges and possibilities

“See the Hope” - Using participatory visual arts methods to challenge HIV related stigma.

This article arises out of our specific involvement in the Hope and Healing Campaign, where we used participatory visual arts methods to engage a group of undergraduate students to address HIV related stigma. We detail the participatory visual arts method used; we offer a brief discussion on what emerged from the session and explore how visual arts based approaches can be used to challenge HIV related stigma and its associated prejudice and discrimination

Multiculturalism in South Africa: In the Shadow of the Rainbow

To understand how issues of diversity have been handled in South African education, it is necessary to explore the prevailing educational approaches in recent years and the ways they have been contested. This chapter will explore limitations of a multiculturalist approach in what is seen, in oversimplified terms, as the ‘Rainbow Nation,’1 and will argue for an approach to diversity that is designed to meet the challenges of continuing inequalities. Our contention is that South African education has always recognized diversity, but the ways in which it has done so have mainly reflected oppressive attitudes and structures

CREATIVE ACTION FOR CHANGE - Conference report: Strategies for non-violence in education

There is ample evidence of the persistence of violence at all levels of the South African education system. Working on the assumption that change will require active collaboration across all sectors, three organisations held a conference in Durban to sustain work towards non-violence. This article reports the process of working from an understanding of the nature and extent of such violence to a review of current projects and programmes to address it, and finally to a collaborative process in developing strategies for change. Research presented gave considerable insight into how violence operates and how interventions can make a significant difference. Two key disconnects were identified – the gap between the values advocated in policies and those actually experienced, and the failure to see humans as simultaneously physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive. Learners challenged the practice of tolerating violence as a norm and insisted on the right to learn in conditions of safety. Practitioners demonstrated a range of innovative interventions through presentations and experiential learning. The strategies placed strong emphasis on ways of fostering positive values and ethical behaviour in education, and on promoting the many ways in which people can take creative action for change