Schools In Johannesburg Research Articles

Schooling in black and white: assimilationist discourses and subversive identity performances in a desegregated South African girls’ school

Research on school desegregation in South Africa has largely documented an assimilationist process. As in educational contexts elsewhere, the assimilationist position presupposes that learners from non‐dominant groups are made to change their ways of being on entering schools from which they were previously excluded. Drawing on an ethnographic case‐study of a suburban girls’ school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where ‘black’ learners have replaced ‘white’ learners, as well as on post‐structuralist theorizing of ‘discourse’ and ‘identity’, this paper engages with and critiques the assimilationist position. I reconstruct the discursive positioning of the girls within official school discourses, thus highlighting the powerful assimilationist project of the school, but go on to explore the ways in which the learners use a range of semiotic resources not valued in official school discourses to subvert their positioning. I conclude that in inhabiting the school, the girls experience both repressive and liberatory effects, and they themselves produce mobile points of resistance.

Together in their schoolGemeinschaft– faithfully: An ethnographic study of two primary schools in Johannesburg

Abstract This article presents parts of an ethnography of two primary schools in Johannesburg, capturing some of the issues with which the struggling education system in South Africa is grappling. One of these issues, which features strongly in the experiences of the teachers that I studied, is teacher retention in the context of increasing social and also educational challenges. The participants in the study shared, among other things, their reasons for staying in the profession. These reasons include religious motivation, a specific teacher identity, and a strong sense of community. As a depiction of ‘the way of life of an identifiable group of people’ (Wolcott 1988) this ethnographic study highlights the shifts in school culture, elements of not only school, but also teacher transformation and change, and how social integration can be enabled through the school as a community. It also highlights the strength of the individual as an agent of transformation.

(Unoffi cial) Multilingualism in desegregated schools: Learners' use of and views towards African languages

South Africa has a progressive Language in Education Policy (LiEP) advocating multilingualism, but the policy has been widely criticised for its lack of implementation. Notable is the hegemony of English in many schools, and in ex-Model C schools in particular. Some have argued that the choices of middle-class African parents in sending their children to English medium schools is threatening the survival of African languages and leading to language shift (De Klerk, 2000; Kamwangamalu, 2003a; 2003b). Drawing on observation and interview data from two desegregated co-educational ex-Model C high schools in Johannesburg, this paper focuses on the language practices and views towards indigenous South African languages of African learners. It captures their perspectives on the schools’ language policies as well as their views on the use of indigenous languages in the classroom and in other domains in the school. The paper shows that learners often use African languages in the school space, frequently through code-switching and code-mixing. This paper argues that claims of language shift are not appropriate, since multilingual language behaviour points to some degree of language maintenance of African languages. The use of African languages by learners enables them to insert new identities into this space and interrupt the exclusive power of English.

Exploring the Reliability and Validity of the DAT-K in Grade 11 Learners in a Historically Disadvantaged School in Johannesburg, South Africa

This study explored the reliability and validity of the Differential Aptitude Test—Form K (DAT-K) in a sample of 75 learners (mean age = 17.1 years, SD = 1.13) from a previously disadvantaged school in Johannesburg. Adequate reliability coefficients were obtained but coefficients were higher for nonverbal than verbal subtests. Face validity was judged to be adequate but construct validity was questionable. All subtests correlated within cluster (verbal, non-verbal) but all the subtests with the exception of the Comparison subtest loaded highly on a single factor. Examination of the influence of language as a variable suggested that learners whose home language was an African language did significantly poorer on all the DAT-K subtests except for the Comparison subtest. These findings lend support to the arguments that psychological testing in South Africa is problematic particularly in individuals who do not speak English as their first language.

Identity formation among learners at a South African high school: assessing the interaction between context and identity

In this article the relationship between identity and context is examined at a high school in Johannesburg, South Africa, which has, since 1995, been racially desegregated. Findings suggest that the identities of the learners are influenced not only by the immediate context of the school, but also by the past context of schooling in South Africa and by the broader social context, which refers to relationships between learners and between learners and teachers, and also the interests, likes and dislikes of learners. Using the high school as a case study, and relying on qualitative research techniques, the nature of this triple‐layered context was examined, as well as the interactions between these layers and the subsequent impact thereof on the process of identity construction among learners. A total of nine focus groups with 53 learners and two focus groups with 11 teachers provided the main data on which the findings are based. Identity articulation, from the viewpoint of the learners, was centred on ‘race’, language, religion, gender, youth and class. The nature of these identities can be attributed to interaction between the different dimensions of the three‐layered context, and not merely to prevailing hegemonic identity discourses at the national level.

The relationship between personality traits and eating pathology in adolescent girls

This research investigated the relationship between personality and the tendency towards developing eating disorders in adolescent females Personality traits were assessed using the High School Personality Questionnaire (HSPQ) and dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviours were assessed using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI). The sample consisted of 244 students from a high school in Johannesburg, South Africa. Significant relationships were found between certain personality traits and eating dysfunction. Reservation, emotional instability, excitability, opportunism, shyness, individualism, proneness to guilt feelings, self-sufficiency and high tension were the personality factors that were significant in relation to eating dysfunction. This thus suggests that personality appears to influence the tendency towards developing eating disorders.

A case study of the language in education complaints received by the CRL commission: multilingualism a far cry from implementation

This paper reports on the processes that a parent followed to have his child's language in education rights acknowledged and implemented within the state schooling system in South Africa between April 2004 and June 2005. The case of Mr. Parent X1, representing his son at Gauteng Primary School (a former Model C School in Johannesburg) would like access to Sesotho as a first additional language-as-subject. This case highlights the routes for linguistic advocacy that are provided for in the Language in Education Policy of 1997, from the principal, to the School Governing Body (SGB), the provincial Department of Education and finally the institutions for language rights promotion and protection provided for in and by the new Constitution. Mr Parent X's navigation through the unchartered waters of language-as-subject rights recognition is both admirable and disconcerting, especially since it highlights the limitations of a language policy that is so inclusive that it risks not adequately creating real space for the historically marginalised endoglossic languages in education. The case also alerts us to many emergent ironies related to language rights in this democratic context which would seem to have become a 'breeding ground' for linguistic genocide.

A space to write: the construction of the writing subject in early schooling

This article applies Foucault's (1977. Discipline and punish) theory of spatial distribution in relation to the teaching of writing in English medium classrooms in early schooling. It aims to highlight the value of working with spatial theory, by attempting to show the relationship between spatial configurations and writing practices that work to produce particular subjectivities. The research sites were two desegregated schools in Johannesburg - a pre-school and a primary school. A Grade 00, Grade 0, two Grade 1 classes and a Grade 3 class constituted the case studies in a multiple case study design. The primary method of data collection was participant observation. Observations were recorded through field notes and video recordings.These were supplemented by teacher interviews and artefact collection.The spatial layout and movement flows of the Grade 00 classroom reveal a writing subject who can make meaning through experimentation and exploration of resources. From Grade 0 this changes, as the emphasis shifts to correctness and a technical mastery of handwriting. Children are confined to their desks and subjected to high levels of corporeal training. By Grade 3, the writing subject emerges as docile and skilled, but with little opportunity to use writing for creative purposes.

‘If I speak English, does it make me less black anyway?’‘Race’ and English in South African desegregated schools

This article focuses on the role language plays in constructing youth identities that are in flux in desegregated suburban schools in South Africa. Interview and participant observation data were collected in three racially mixed schools in Johannesburg. My analysis of the data is set against a discussion of the problematic concept of race and of the historical classification of South African English according to ‘race’ as well as the position of English in South Africa at present. The article presents an analysis of the ways in which learners recognize and characterize the different kinds of English used around them, attaching prestige to varieties perceived as white. The tension between learners' valuing of what is perceived as white English and their labelling of black learners who ‘speak like a white person’ or who no longer speak African languages (either through lack of proficiency or choice) as ‘coconuts’ is explored. The article attempts to open up a debate on race and language use among youth in South Africa, and on race and varieties of English in particular.

Revisiting the equal sign: Some Grade 8 and 9 learners' interpretations

This paper reports on a study that explored learners' uses and interpretations of the equal sign. The study involved Grade 8 and 9 learners in a secondary school in Johannesburg, South Africa. Much of the earlier research done on the equal sign has focussed on the primary school level, but this one focuses on secondary school learners. The study shows that the most dominant interpretation of the equal sign amongst Grade 8 and 9 learners is as a do-something, unidirectional symbol. Learners see the equal sign as a tool for writing the answer rather than as a relational symbol to compare quantities.

Edgar Leon Udwin

Edgar was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 28 March, 1918, and died aged 84 in London on 17 October, 2002, after a long and distressing cardiac illness. ![Figure][1] He was educated at King Edward's School in Johannesburg and studied medicine at Witwatersrand University, where he

Smart cards launched at Johannesburg schools

Smart cards launched at Johannesburg schools

Sleep Behavior of South African Adolescents

To survey a large group of South African adolescents about their sleep behavior, daytime behaviors, and morning alertness as compared to those of other teenagers worldwide. Subjects completed a questionnaire about their sleep habits and daytime behaviors on the previous day, and subjective morning alertness at the time of completing the questionnaire. Four secondary schools in Johannesburg, South Africa on mid-week mornings. 825 secondary school students volunteered for this study. N/A. The students, (16+/-1 years), 61% female, reported significantly less time in bed (p<0.001) on a school night (453+/-70 minutes), compared to weekend nights (476+/-128 minutes). On the school night, they reported a mean sleep onset latency of 17 minutes, with 45% of the sample falling asleep in less than ten minutes. Short sleep onset latency and short in-bed wakefulness both were positively related to a high sleep efficiency and subjective sleep quality. On the previous day, 72% of the adolescents had consumed caffeinated beverages and 56% had exercised, but these behaviors did not significantly influence their nighttime sleep. The majority (77%) of students had napped the previous day and 8% had taken medication to fall asleep that night. 40% of the students felt that they could fall asleep mid-morning, if given the chance, but their sleepiness was independent of their nighttime sleep quality or duration. Similarly to teenagers around the world, South African adolescents get insufficient sleep during the week, which they attempt to compensate for on the weekends. A large proportion of the students are also sleepy during the school day, which may influence their academic performance.

Teachers Reactions to Outcomes-Based Music Education in South African Primary Schools

This article examines the reactions of specialist music teachers to the introduction of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) in South Africa. OBE has been seen in post-apartheid South Africa as a way to transform education and address the imbalances of the past. The study reported here used questionnaires to explore attitudes of teachers at independent schools in Johannesburg in the first year of implementing OBE. Analysis of data revealed both positive and negative attitudes as well as the strong need for teachers professional development if OBE is to succeed.

Anneli Silvennoinen, Teacher-Librarian, Johannesburg, South Africa: A Day in Her Life

St. Mary's is an independent school in Johannesburg, South Africa, which has always been multiracial. It is one of the top academic school in the country.

Parents' Reactions to Teacher Practices of Parent Involvement

The Elementary School Journal Volume 86, Number S O 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0013-5984/86/8603-0002$01.00 Teachers have strong opinions about parent involvement. Some believe that they can be effective only if they obtain parental assistance on learning activities at home. Others believe that their professional status is in jeopardy if parents are involved in activities that are typically the teachers' responsibilities. The different philosophies and beliefs of teachers reflect the two main, opposing theories of school and family relations. One perspective emphasizes the inherent incompatibility, competition, and conflict between families and schools and supports the separation of the two institutions (Parsons, 1959; Waller, 1932; Weber, 1947). It assumes that school bureaucracies and family organizations are directed, respectively, by educators and parents, who can best fulfill their different goals, roles, and responsibilities independently. Thus, these distinct goals are achieved most efficiently and effectively when teachers maintain their professional, general standards and judgments about the children in their classrooms and when parents maintain their personal, particularistic standards and judgments about their children at home.

An investigation into the language and generalization abilities in the brain-injured and non brain-injured mentally retarded child

Five brain-injured children were compared with five non brain-injured children on the ITPA and a Generalization Test devised by the writer. These children were aged between 7 and 11 years, and their IQ scores were between 65 and 80. All the children were in special classes in government schools in Johannesburg, and were free of auditory, visual and physical disabilities. The results of this investigation were presented and discussed in terms of whether any difference in language ability of the subjects in this study was present, so as to see whether there was a "typical" profile for each diagnostic group. It was concluded that there are different types of peaks in the profiles of the two groups, and that both groups have poor generalization ability. A close inter-relationship between language and generalization abilities was considered to exist.

From too much freedom to too much restriction: The case of teacher autonomy from National Curriculum Statement (NCS) to Curriculum and Assessment Statement (CAPS)

The major curricula revisions in South Africa in the last two decades or so have changed the curriculum landscape. These revisions are meant to effect among other issues, the socio-economic development for all through quality education. The latest curricula transition from National Curriculum Statement (NCS) to Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), although meant to respond to widely publicised shortfalls in the NCS, has compromised educator autonomy. This empirical case study was undertaken to explore Further Education and Training (FET) educators’ adherence to implementation of CAPS in the light of their professional autonomy. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) guided this study. This theory presumes that teachers’ beliefs direct their behaviour. Data was collected from fifty-two FET educators of varying subjects from twelve Johannesburg schools. The study revealed that the prescriptive nature of the curriculum as espoused by CAPS at times compromised educator autonomy in effecting quality education.

A preliminary study of bilingualism and stuttering in four Johannesburg schools

No abstract available.