Whose school is it anyway: Narratives of schooling in a post-apartheid township school

Abstract

This research project aimed to understand the nuanced interactions that maintain, reproduce and aid the perpetuation of coloniality, and the ways in which this transmission is resisted, in the space of a township school in post-Apartheid South Africa. The research highlights the complexities of youth identities as well as relational patterns and power dynamics between teachers, learners, and parents. The study employs the dual lens of critical bifocality as a framework, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between individual lives and structures. This framework has allowed for an analysis that not only uncovers the deep roots of coloniality but also brings into focus the pervasive, sometimes invisible, ways in which these oppressive structures of power continue to shape, affect and interact with individuals’ daily lives. The qualitative approach employed narrative inquiry and participatory action research (YPAR) methodologies. 13 grade 10-12 learners participated in the study, and individual interviews were conducted with nine learners. While the primary focus was on young people’s experiences, two small focus groups were conducted with five parents and four teachers to provide supplementary data, providing the insights and perspectives of the older generation to enrich the study’s findings. The focal point for these focus groups was provided by the different stakeholder groups’ reflections on a particularly violent incident that occurred in the school during data collection. Framed as an enactment, the incident is interpreted as a form of communication that reveals the condition of coloniality, where abnormal and harmful conditions in which people live, have become normalized. These conditions, marked by violence and socio-economic hardship, reflect the enduring systemic and structural legacies of (post)apartheid township communities. The findings reveal that young people are navigating and negotiating the complexity of living in a world that constantly undermines their potential and their humanity, at the same time as they express a desire for identity and agency. Interestingly, the young people in the study viewed school not only as a site of academic preparation but also as a space for identity formation and self-expression. However, this space shaped by contemporary forms of racist inequality, was found to have significant impact young people’s social relations, sense of self and psychological wellbeing. The study further found that the care(less) ethic displayed by some teachers is not simply the result of individual attitudes but rather reflects a pervasive atmosphere of care(less)ness, deeply rooted in the dehumanising apartheid legacy. The continued use of corporal punishment, despite it being banned in South Africa, is reflective of this care(less) ethic. Furthermore, narratives about corporal punishment echoed the country’s history of violent policing and control of Black bodies. While many participants acknowledged the pain and trauma caused by corporal punishment, the older generation remains ambivalent, oscillating between viewing it as an effective means of maintaining discipline among learners, and acknowledging its violent, and harmful impact on learners. Importantly, the findings also highlight that care, when activated or expressed in these dehumanising conditions, either by a teacher, or among peers, takes on political significance, it functions as an act of resistance. In this way, care frames the ways inequality is experienced and navigated. While the young people express despair about the careless conditions of schooling and their lives more generally, they also articulate moments of hopeful care. Despite pervasive structural challenges, young people continue to imagine alternative futures. Their aspirations, expressed within and beyond school, constitute acts of resistance. As they navigate and contest the conditions that threaten to diminish their humanity, they simultaneously transform and remake the spaces they inhabit.