Leading and manage diverse schools in South Africa

Herman J Van Vuuren,Jl Van Der Walt,Philip C Van Der Westhuizen

doi:10.21511/ppm.14(2-1).2016.14

Herman J Van Vuuren, Jl Van Der Walt + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.14(2-1).2016.14

Copy DOI

Abstract

All school populations are diverse in many ways. The diversity in South African schools has been compounded since 1994 with the migration of Black learners to former ‘white’ schools. Some schools and their principals have succeeded in coping efficiently with the new social and cultural makeup of their schools, while others have been struggling and even resigned under the pressures of all the conflicting demands from stakeholders. The theoretical and empirical investigation reported in this paper shows that principals and schools could benefit enormously from learning from the experiences of the more successful schools and their principals

Highlights

The South African population, like all nation-states around the world (Banks, 2010), is highly diverse in terms of obvious differences, as well as more tacit differences (Department of Education, 2000b)
We contend that some South African schools and their principals have succeeded in finding working solutions to the problem of guiding and managing schools having to cope with increasing diversity, and that other principals and schools would benefit from learning about their experience and the solutions that they came up with
This viewpoint is in accordance with a balanced and holistic interpretation of diversity that transcends any limited emphasis or one-sided view about isolated aspects of diversity. They opined that cultural and racial matters were politicized and tended to overshadow other important aspects of diversity. They agreed that multicultural education could reinforce some kind of separatism, a point that was emphasized in our own theoretical framework

Summary

Introduction

The South African population, like all nation-states around the world (Banks, 2010), is highly diverse in terms of obvious differences (length, age, gender and so on), as well as more tacit differences (intelligence, religious affiliation, sexual preference and so on) (Department of Education, 2000b). The pre-1994 apartheid Government of South Africa seemed to have been preoccupied with managing racial and ethnic differences to the extent that people from different races/skin colour were statutorily kept apart (segregated), even in the format of (dis)placing them physically in different geographical areas (Hemson, 2006). The promulgation of the new Constitutional dispensation in South Africa has brought about a wide-ranging number of reforms in education (schooling), one of which was that all schools became united under a single national department of education (administrated by nine provincial departments of education) (Department of Education, 2001). The new constitutional dispensation has understandably brought about a number of new challenges, one of which is how to manage the wide diversity of people effectively in schools.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion