Integrating South African schools? Some preliminary findings

Abstract

It is more than 15 years since South African schools have effectively become ‘open’. In the mid-1980s, following the lead of the Sacred Heart College in Johannesburg, many schools, often in defiance of the apartheid government, took the decision to open their doors to children of all races. In 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, this process was completed with the abolition of apartheid education and the establishment of a single, unified and non-racial education authority. The question that this study seeks to answer is: what forms is inequality taking in schools in the new and democratic South Africa? The purpose of this article, therefore, drawing on a medium-scale study on inclusion and exclusion in 12 schools spread across three provinces in South Africa, is to begin the process of developing an understanding of what is happening in schools with respect to issues such as race, class, gender, religion and language. How are these issues being re-articulated in the new South Africa? The article is by definition tentative. While the studies in each school were relatively intensive, the scale of the work is limited and must be seen as suggestive of what is happening in the country as a whole. In seeking to understand the schools’ policies around inclusion and exclusion, the article focuses on their access and governance practices.