Abstract
South African classrooms were highly diversified. The problem, however, was that although democracy has been a critical characteristic of South Africa for over two decades, it is still a very vague concept to many. A teacher who truly understood democracy knew that it was not just about freedom of self, rather the freedom of all, treating others humanely and with kindness. Making power a variable accessible by all was the only way to which diversities can be ameliorated. Observation and personal experiences showed that there were discriminations of many kinds in some high schools. Therefore, to address these maladies, the importance of democracy in diversity must not be jettisoned because they work hand-in-hand. Ubuntu philosophy was used as a theoretical framework, whilst transformative paradigm piloted the study. Participatory research (PR) was adopted as a research design to enable the people student-teachers to jointly participate in this research. Observation and reflections were used to collect data within the high schools in the Free State province of South Africa. Thomas and Harden’s three steps of thematic analysis was used to analyse data and the result show that language, cultural and personal relativism, learning impairment and comprehensibility were the dominant challenges faced in diversity management in schools. On the other hand, inculcation of classroom relationships and a sense of belonging, training and retraining of teachers and students were found to be perfect solutions that can nip these problems in the bud. The present study, therefore, concluded that the value of teachers’ and students’ development towards diversity management must be addressed.
Highlights
We live in a world of apparent differences, contradictions, contrasts and separations, which are not limited to human existentialism but by extension comprising animals, plants and objects
Challenges associated with the management of diversities in South African high schools To respond to objective number one of the study data related to the challenges that inhibit the implementation of diversity management in South African secondary schools were coded, thematised and analysed under the following sub-headings: language, cultural and personal relativism and learning impairment and comprehensibility
This, according to Mohanty,[37] is because South African schools are embedded with various cultural groups with different languages where there is a need to learn from each other’s culture and language to work together
Summary
We live in a world of apparent differences, contradictions, contrasts and separations, which are not limited to human existentialism but by extension comprising animals, plants and objects. Within these categories of existence exists the unquestionable variance of differences. One could say this is what diversity entails. The spirit of equality here can only be addressed using democratic education, most notably in schools, which according to Omodan[1] is an educational ideal in which democracy forms both a goal and a method of instruction. This study empirically conceptualises the interconnectivity, connections and disconnections of democratic pedagogy in South Africa as it correlates with diversity management in secondary schools
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