Black parents' perceptions of open schools.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate and describe black parents' understanding and experiences of the private open school system in the Witwatersrand. Using a framework of multipluralism, the intention of the study is two-fold. Firstly, it explores the various factors which enhance or inhibit the open school choice. Secondly, it establishes the role of black parents within the open school community, as well as their role within their own black communities. The information required to develop the comprehensive survey questionnaire was elicited through a pilot study. The research data was generated using structured interviews from a sample of Belgravia Convent parents. The results show that the reasons which parents give for the choice of open school education are informed by a number of identities. The study identifies these as: social class, racial, religious and geographic identities. Gender identity was found to have no influence. The motivators for the open school choice are not restricted to the economic discourse, but are also extended beyond the economic boundaries to include aspects which are located within the political, racial, religious and geographic discourses. These multifarious identities are found to articulate with one another in complementary and contradictory ways when motivating the parents' choice of open school education. An example of such a contradictory relationship is when the motivators for the open school choice - the escape from the inferior standard of township education, and the need for better education, the latter being driven by the middle class aspiration of upward mobility - contradict the need to maintain racial unity within the black communities, as well as with the desire of not losing their cultural heritage. In other words, the low standard of township education together with the social class status of parents stands at a tension with both the political and cultural identities of parents. Hence contradictions should be taken into account when analysing issues of choice.