“Narratives of Social Cohesion”: Bridging the Link between School Culture, Linguistic Identity and the English Language

Abstract

This paper argues that processes of self-creation are significantly influenced by experiences of schooling, of which language forms a critical aspect. The school is a central site in which identities are contested, negotiated and affirmed, but it is also imbibed with a particular identity that, in the South African context, often remains expressly raced and classed. Existing research has pointed to the salience of language for questions of identity in education, and moreover the relationship between school cultures and the inculcation of particular norms and values. However, in the South African context research should also be focusing on the relationship between the major medium of instruction in schools, English, the values and behaviour encouraged at the school level, and how these influence learners’ linguistic and social identities. This paper engages with research conducted in three Cape Town schools and develops the idea of “narratives of social cohesion” to articulate the ways in which different school cultures influence learner-identity formation. It posits that the assumed neutrality of the primary medium of instruction, and its historic association with whiteness, represents a continued undervaluation of black learners’ linguistic and social experiences.

Towards Compassionate Care: A Critical Race Analysis of Teaching in Township Schools

“…Ukholo Senior Secondary School, the site of this research, reflects these racialised disparities. The current condition of schools across South Africa challenges the notion that education is a way out of poverty, and indeed, demonstrates a continuity with the systematic racial oppression fostered by the previous apartheid government ( De Kock, Sayed, and Badroodien 2018;Spaull 2013).…”

“…While there are 11 official languages in South Africa (Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Tswana, Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Venda, and Ndebele), the two historically white languages sanctioned under apartheid (Afrikaans and English) remain the only languages tested for required matric exams (Knaus and Brown 2016, 71). These continuing practices devalue language diversity and multilingualism, while associating school success directly with the ability to write and speak dominant languages (De Kock, Sayed, and Badroodien 2018;Rudwick 2018).…”

“…In township schools, Black learners continue to be devalued through English-language curricula (De Kock, Sayed, and Badroodien 2018). Christie and McKinney (2017, 7) argue "most children in the world grow up multilingually," and this is especially true for Black township-based learners.…”

“…While Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and first Black democratically elected president of South Africa, argued that "education is the great engine of personal development" (Mandela 1994, 99), schools in South Africa remain embedded within previous systems of racial oppression. This racial apartheid is seen through state-enforced unequal resource distribution and school funding disparities that mirror and extend the conditions of poverty in Black townships, as well as a white-framed curriculum and white-dominated language of instruction (Brown, Dancy, and Lane 2017;De Kock, Sayed, and Badroodien 2018;Spaull 2013).…”

Demystifying student plagiarism in academic writing: Towards an ‘educational’ solution

“…Secondly, it is important to highlight that classrooms in South African universities are largely multilingual, and learners have to negotiate their social and cultural capital in order to acquire the language of teaching and learning as a medium of communication (De Kock, et al, 2018). For black African language speaking students, such negotiation is an uphill task which is further complicated by continued disregard of their 1 st language in preference for English as the de-facto language of teaching and learning.…”