Rainbow nation discourses among Black millennial history teachers in relation to post-apartheid South African history

Abstract

Generational experiences create unique contextualised meanings for society. This is the case with millennials in South Africa, many of whom use social media to organise their lives and engage with issues pertinent to them, such as South Africa being a rainbow nation. Some of these millennials are history teachers who, when at work, have to teach an official history which may contradict some of their social media engagements. This motivated this article of which the aim was to identify the dominant conversations when relating to the rainbow nation among a selected group of Black millennial history teachers. In this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) we used a qualitative approach in which 10 participants were involved in photo elicitation, semi-structured interviews, and focus-group discussions. Data were thematically analysed. The findings reflect millennials mainly engaged with violence, coloniality, victory, unity, and identity. The findings further suggest that the discourses were both contending and overlapping. We argue that millennial history teachers in South Africa hold different views about the rainbow nation: even though they paint the notion with predominant negativity, there is evidence of underlying positivity about it.