Archive for the ‘Non-fiction’ Category
by HSRC Press on Apr 12th, 2012
Realising the Dream: Unlearning the logic of race in the South African school is an intellectual and practical response to the dangers that come with the ubiquity of race, race-thinking and its attendant propensity to subsume the nuances of all other social complexity.
Beginning with a comprehensive scoping of the theoretical literature on race and social difference, the book delivers a meticulous examination of how the ‘logic of race’ is played out in the lives of post-apartheid South African school students. Based in two decades of empirical research, this compelling and insightful analysis reveals how the ongoing preoccupation with race not only obscures but also prevents the evolution of new ways of understanding privilege and subordination.
We dream of a better world. The fundamental promise of education, the author argues, is to develop the capacity to make real, in our will and desire, this possibility. However, the dream can be fully realised only when the learnt prejudices and false certainties of race, gender and indeed all our unproblematised conceits about who and what we are, are unlearnt. Written by one of South Africa’s foremost theorists of school education, this book is as brave as it is challenging – an inspiring, essential read for education practitioners and students in particular, and social theorists more broadly.
Praise for Realising the Dream
“Realising the Dream is a pledge to a transformative agenda. It presents an unflappable belief in the possibility of change that attaches immense value to the premise embedded in the book’s subtitle Unlearning the logic of race… Soudien opines, rightly, that as a social construct ‘race’ is learned and therefore can be unlearned. That is the challenge of our times and a solace to W.E.B. du Bois’s famous lament that ‘the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line’. Realising the Dream is a must-read. Beyond reading, however, it also requires a commitment to personal transformation.” – Mokubung Nkomo, Director of the Centre for Diversity and Social Cohesion, University of Pretoria
“A sterling example of scholarship out-of-bounds precisely because it is grounded in lived reality. Crain Soudien enables movement from proscribed to capacious possibilities for personhood, sociality and for knowledge (un)making and sharing. From this place of ‘big mind’ he writes not only against but through ‘race’, piercing its countless mutations en route to wide-open anti-racial reasoning. Steeped in history, Soudien’s ‘new critical sociology’ walks with history into a possible future. Realising the Dream will have prize place on the shelves of readers interested in difference as a catalyst for – not a hindrance to – becoming more human. This work is saturated with an ethic of care and quiet defiance. It is both seminal and beautiful.” – Zimitri Erasmus, Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town and Mandela Mellon Fellow at W.E.B du Bois Institute at Harvard
About the author
Professor Crain Soudien is formerly the Director of the School of Education at the University of Cape Town and currently a Deputy Vice-Chancellor. He has written over 120 articles, reviews, reports, and book chapters in the areas of social difference, culture, educational policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture. He is the co-editor of three books on District Six, Cape Town and another on comparative education, the author of The Making of Youth Identity in Contemporary South Africa: Race, Culture and Schooling,and the co-author of Inclusion and Exclusion in South African and Indian Schools. He was educated at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and holds a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is involved in a number of local, national and international social and cultural organisations and is the Chairperson of the District Six Museum Foundation, a Board member of the Cape Town Festival, immediate Past-President of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies and was the Chair of a Ministerial Committee on Transformation in Higher Education.
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by HSRC Press on Apr 10th, 2012
Attendant fears for Mali, in light of the recent coup, include the survival of an ancient heritage – the Timbuktu Manuscripts. Shamil Jeppie, author of The Meanings of Timbuktu and head of UCT‘s Timbuktu Manuscripts Project, has expressed concerns regarding the fate of these extraordinary documents:
The ancient African manuscripts of Timbuktu seem to have survived the capture of the city at the weekend by Tuareg and other rebels trying to topple the new military government of Mali. Rantobeng Mokou, SA’s ambassador to Mali, said last night he had spoken to people in Timbuktu who told him the rebels had stolen cars, money and other goods from the SA-sponsored library holding many of the manuscripts.
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by HSRC Press on Apr 5th, 2012
People often wear their causes on their t-shirts, in their choice of traditional attire or other garments, or by way of specific costumes, pieces of jewellery or particular accessories. In Was it something I wore? Dress, identity, materiality, the contributors explore the construction and performance of personal and social identities. The essays point to the significance of dress as material culture in social science research not only in their content but also in their focus on a variety of methodologies including memory work, visual studies, autoethnography, object biographies and other forms of textual analysis.
The framing question, Was it something I wore? is central to the many dress questions the book raises; questions that challenge the socio-political status quo. To what extent does dress visually signify the construction of a chosen identity and a chosen performance? How does dress position the body and identity in different social and cultural spaces? How does dress signify oppression and/or liberation for women and how might this differ for men? What is the role of dress in the constructions of schooling and contemporary childhood? In its exploration of these and other questions, Was it something I wore? addresses a variety of pertinent social issues that confront communities in southern Africa.
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by HSRC Press on Apr 2nd, 2012
The Low Achievement Trap: Comparing schools in Botswana and South Africa is an empirical study of student mathematics learning in Grade 6 classrooms that is unique in its focus on two school systems shaped by different political histories on either side of the Botswana-South Africa border.
The study provides a detailed examination of the capacity of teachers – how they teach, how much they teach, and what they teach. Because of this wealth of detail, The Low Achievement Trap gives us much greater insight than previous research into why students seem to be making larger gains in the classrooms of South Eastern Botswana than in those of North West Province, South Africa. Rather than identifying a single major factor to explain this difference, the study finds that a composite of inter-related variables revolving around teachers’ mathematics knowledge and their capacity to teach mathematics are crucial to improving education in both regions. The message is a hopeful one: good teachers can make a difference in student learning.
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by HSRC Press on Mar 30th, 2012
This compelling study, comprising a sample of eight schools in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa – Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania, examines the sources, contents and processes of children´s community-based sexual knowledges and asks how these knowledges interact with AIDS education programmes in school.
Old Enough To Know showcases the possibilities of consulting pupils using engaging, interactive and visual methods including digital still photography, mini-video documentaries, as well as interviews and observations. These innovative methods allow children to speak freely and openly in contexts where talking about sex to adults is a cultural taboo.
The study also sheds fresh light on teachers´ fears and struggles with a lack of training and limited opportunities for reflection on practice. It engages in dialogue with conflicting voices of community stakeholders who are both aware of the dangers faced by children living in a world with AIDS and who are also afraid of the many cultural, religious and moral restraints to sex education in Africa.
About the authors
Colleen McLaughlin (UK), PhD, is Deputy Head of Faculty at the Faculty of Education University of Cambridge, where she is responsible for international initiatives. She is also a project leader in the Centre for Commonwealth Education. She has a lifelong interest in the psychosocial aspects of education and has worked on the personal and social aspects of education, including sex education, for the last thirty years. Other recent research has included research on of bullying and difference, and counselling interventions with children and young people. Her recent publications include The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent (2011)(with J Gray, M Galton, B Clark, & J Symonds. Cambridge: Scholars Press); Networking Practitioner Research (2007) (C McLaughlin, K Black-Hawkins & D McIntyre. London: Routledge) and Researching Schools: Stories from a Schools–University Partnership for Educational Research (2006) (C McLaughlin, K Black-Hawkins, S Brindley, D McIntyre & K Taber, London: Routledge).
Sharlene Swartz (South Africa), PhD, is a sociologist and Research Director in the Human and Social Development research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. She is also a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, University of Cambridge, UK. She has undergraduate degrees in science (University of the Witwatersrand) and theology (University of Zululand), both in South Africa, and holds a masters degree from Harvard University and a PhD in the Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests focus on youth and poverty, social inequality, the sociology of morality and masculine moralities. She is the author of Teenage Tata (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2009 with A Bhana), The moral ecology of South Africa’s township youth (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2010) and Moral Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Culture, economics, conflict and AIDS (London: Routledge, 2011, co-edited with M Taylor).
Susan Kiragu (Kenya), PhD, is a social scientist, and a Research Associate at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. She has undergraduate and masters’ degrees in education from Kenyan universities, and a masters degree and a PhD in education from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests are centred in Africa – especially on HIV/AIDS and sexuality education, and gender and education. She has published in journals such as Journal of Moral Education, Qualitative Research and Sex Education, in addition to a number of book chapters.
Shelina Walli (Tanzania) is assistant lecturer at Aga Khan University, Institute of Educational Development East Africa (AKU IED-EA), based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She has an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education and a Masters of Education (Teacher Education) from AKU IED-EA. Her master’s thesis considered the integration of HIV/AIDS education into the pre-school curriculum. She has a passion for early childhood and has been in the field of education in various capacities for 20 years.
Mussa Mohamed (Tanzania) is a science and health education facilitator at Aga Khan University, Institute of Educational Development (IED) East Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He has an undergraduate degree in Science with Education from Dar es Salaam University, and holds a masters degree from Aga Khan University, IED, Pakistan. His research interests focus on improving the teaching and learning of HIV/AIDS and on promoting science literacy.
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- Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed
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EAN: 9780796923745
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by HSRC Press on Mar 26th, 2012
HSRC Press has released a brand new edition of Gerald Pillay’s Voices of Liberation title, Albert Luthuli:
The struggle to free South Africa from its apartheid shackles was long and complex. One of the many ways in which the apartheid regime maintained its stranglehold in South Africa was through controlling the freedom of speech and the flow of information, in an effort to silence the voices of those who opposed it.
United by the ideals of freedom and equality, but also nuanced by a wide variety of persuasions, the ‘voices of liberation’ were many: African nationalists, communists, trade-unionists, pan-Africanists, English liberals, human rights activists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews, to name but a few.
The Voices of Liberation series ensures that the debates and values that shaped the liberation movement are not lost. The series offers a unique combination of biographical information with selections from original speeches and writings in each volume. By providing access to the thoughts and writings of some of the many men and women who fought for the dismantling of apartheid, this series invites the contemporary reader to engage directly with the rich history of the struggle for democracy.
This volume presents a brief biography of South Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner, Albert Luthuli, followed by a selection from the many speeches he made, first as President of the Natal branch of the African National Congress and then as President-General. The book concludes with a reflection on his legacy from a current perspective and a further reading list.
About the author
Professor Gerald John Pillay is Vice-Chancellor & Rector of Liverpool Hope University. He has a DPhil in Philosophical Theology from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He was professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of South Africa for eight years during which time he was also a research fellow at Princeton University. In 1997 he became Foundation Professor and Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Otago University, New Zealand’s oldest University, where he also served as the first Head of Liberal Arts. He has served in various senior leadership roles at the University of South Africa, the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria and the University of Otago.
Professor Pillay has published extensively and served on the editorial boards of two international journals (Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae and Verbum et Ecclesia). He was elected a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) in 2005, and received a commission to become a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Merseyside in 2009.
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by HSRC Press on Mar 23rd, 2012
Being pregnant and a young parent in South African schools is not easy. Books and Babies examines why this is the case. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research conducted in secondary schools in Durban and Cape Town, the book explores how teachers and principals respond to the presence of pregnant learners and young parents in school, and surveys the attitudes of fellow learners towards them.
Interviews with the young parents themselves yield rich narratives which, accompanied by a visual essay, invite the reader into their lives as they confront the demands of pregnancy, parenting and school. Books and Babies provides a finely textured analysis of these demands and shows the ongoing need to challenge the unequal and gendered load of pregnancy and parenting, both in schools and the broader social context.
Contents
1. Pregnancy and parenthood in South African schools – Robert Morrell, Deevia Bhana and Tamara Shefer
Section A – Principals, teachers and the ‘problem’ of pregnancy and parenting
Introduction: A qualitative analysis of interviews with principals and teachers – Deevia Bhana
2. Schools and their responses to the rights and needs of pregnant and parenting learners — Lindsay Clowes, Toni D’Amant and Vuyo Nkani
3. Teacher responses to pregnancy and young parents in schools — Deevia Bhana and Sisa Ngabaza
Section B – Learner attitudes to pregnancy, parents and gender equality: A quantitative analysis
Introduction — Richard Devey and Robert Morrell
4. Mothers, fathers and carers: Learner involvement in carework – Robert Morrell and Richard Devey
5. Mothers: yes, babies: no. Peer attitudes towards young learner-parents – Richard Devey and Robert Morrell
6. Gender and parenting: Challenging traditional roles? – Richard Devey and Robert Morrell
Section C – Being a Learner, Being a Parent – School experiences
Introduction – Tamara Shefer
7. ‘It isn’t easy’: Young parents talk of their school experiences – Tamara Shefer, Deevia Bhana, Robert Morrell, Ntsiki Manzini and Nokuthula Masuku
8. Being a young parent: The gendered sharing of carework – Tamara Shefer, Elron Fouten and Nokuthula Masuku
9. Conclusion: Policy implications and issues for the future – Deevia Bhana, Tamara Shefer and Robert Morrell
10. Photographing young parents – Cedric Nunn
About the editors
Robert Morrell has worked in South African universities since 1982 when he joined the University of Transkei’s History Department. For 20 years he lectured in the Department of Education at the University of Natal/KwaZulu-Natal before joining the University of Cape Town, where he currently works in the Research Office and is an associate of the School of Education. He is editor of Changing Men in Southern Africa (2001) and author (with Debbie Epstein, Elaine Unterhalter, Deevia Bhana and Relebohile Moletsane) of Towards Gender Equality (2009).
Deevia Bhana is associate professor in the Faculty of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal. She specialises in the study of gender, education and childhood, and has published widely in her field.
Tamara Shefer is Professor and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of the Western Cape. Most of her work, teaching, research and publications has been in the area of gender, HIV, masculinities and sexuality, as well as feminist and critical psychology.
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by HSRC Press on Mar 16th, 2012
In an article written for the Municipal Services Project, David McDonald, co-author of Alternatives to Privatisation, discusses the need for a discourse that critically assesses the notion of “public” service delivery and whether or not progressive, equitable and sustainable forms of public services can exist:
After 10 years of being critical of privatization it was time for a change. It can be depressing being negative all the time, and it felt like the debate on public versus private services was trapped in a stalemate.
I also knew there were hundreds of remarkable examples of innovative new forms of public service delivery all over the world, and decades’ worth of successful ‘old style’ public services. The problem was that these stories weren’t getting the airtime they deserved, and if they were it was often done in an ad hoc manner. There was little in the way of coordinated research on ‘alternatives to privatization’ and a need to get the word out to more people.
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- Alternatives to Privatisation: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South edited by David A McDonald, Greg Ruiters
EAN: 9780796923776
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by HSRC Press on Mar 14th, 2012
In an article for the Daily Monitor, public intellectual Mahmood Mamdani draws attention to the downside of the viral KONY 2012 internet campaign which aims to rid Uganda of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army:
Only two weeks ago, Ugandan papers carried front-page reports from the highly respected Social Science Research Council of New York, accusing the Uganda army of atrocities against civilians in Central African Republic while on a mission to fight Joseph Kony and the LRA.
The army denied the allegations. Many in the civilian population, especially in the north, were skeptical of the denial. Like all victims, they have long and enduring memories. The adult population recalls the brutal government-directed counterinsurgency campaign beginning 1986, and evolving into Operation North, the first big operation that people talk about as massively destructive for civilians, and creating the conditions that gave rise to the LRA of Joseph Kony and, before it, the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena.
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by HSRC Press on Mar 13th, 2012
The launch of David A McDonald and Greg Ruiters’ Alternatives to Privatisation: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South at The Book Lounge last week was well attended.
Welcoming the editorial team to the shop was Johan Hugo, who reflected on a recent issue of The Economist devoted to state owned enterprises: “It’s quite a signal when a publication as august and conservative as The Economist starts seriously talking about alternatives to privatisation…it marks the end of a hegemonic discourse about the conservative view of privatisation. This book is entirely timely.”
McDonald, professor of Global Development studies at Queen’s University in Canada, gave an overview of the purpose of the book, offering insights into where it situates itself with regards to debates on privatisation and alternatives. Rhodes academic Greg Ruiters, editor of The Fate of the Eastern Cape, spoke about the South African context of the book, and highlighted the related debates and reconsideration of practice that the book aims to stimulate.
McDonald focused on the Municipal Services Project which has been in operation for over ten years. After many years critiquing privatisation – commercialisation of services, public private partnerships in health, water, electricity, and waste management – the Municipal Services Project entered extensive debates with the South African government. This was followed by a drive to expand the project internationally. “We now have a global project with international partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America,” said McDonald.
An extensive and lively Q&A session followed in which audience members considered public alternatives for South Africa’s essential services.
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Liesl Jobson tweeted from the event using #livebooks:
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Book details
- Alternatives to Privatisation: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South edited by David A McDonald and Greg Ruiters
EAN: 9780796923776
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