Paradox and Pedagogy: Double Binds and the Culture of Learning in South African Schools

Abstract

The culture of learning has been severely eroded in many South African schools. This article analyzes the relationship between this erosion and the legacy of apartheid in terms of the double bind hypothesis. Adouble bind occurs when (interpersonal or cultural) injunctions demanding certain itemsof behavior are regularly accompanied by higher-order injunctions forbidding the patternsof behavior that must necessarily result from obeying those injunctions. The hypothesis proposes that people caught in a double bind might lose the ability to distinguish between the two orders of injunctions. The analysis suggests that many Black South Africans have fallen victim to a double bind created by contradictions between the injunctions imposed by the school system and those imposed by the former regime’s racist socioeconomic policies. The resultant confusion between levels is evidenced in the fact that many pupils and teachers habitually misinterpret educational injunctions as symbols of political oppression.