Hierarchies of knowledge, incommensurabilities and silences in South African ECD policy: Whose knowledge counts?

Abstract

Policy for young children in South Africa is now receiving high-level government support through the ANC's renewed commitment to redress poverty and inequity and creating 'a better life for all' as promised before the 1994 election. In this article, I explore the power relations, knowledge hierarchies and discourses of childhood, family and society in National Curriculum Framework (NCF) as it relates to children's everyday contexts. I throw light on how the curriculum's discourses relate to the diverse South African settings, child rearing practices and world-views, and how they interact with normative discourses of South African policy and global early childhood frameworks. The NCF acknowledges indigenous and local knowledges and suggests that the content should be adapted to local contexts. I argue that the good intentions of these documents to address inequities are undermined by the uncritical acceptance of global taken-for-granted discourses, such as narrow notions of evidence, western child development, understanding of the child as a return of investment and referencing urban middle class community contexts and values. These global discourses make the poorest children and their families invisible, and silence other visions of childhood and good society, including the notion of 'convivial society' set out in the 1955 Freedom Charter.

Voices heard and lessons learnt: Exploring multiple knowledges and local participation in a community-based integrated early childhood development project in rural South Africa

“…Similar to those identified elsewhere around the world (see Adriany, 2018, Lightfoot-Rueda, 2018, Viruru, 2005, Penn, 2005 Rudolph (2017) highlights how dominant global discourses of ECEC/ECD are constructing early childhood policy and practice in South Africa. She cites a range of examples, including "narrow notions of evidence, western child development, understanding of the child as return of investment and referencing urban middle-class community contexts and values" (Rudolph, 2017, p. 77).…”

“…a r t i c l e s j o u r n a l o f p e d a g o g y 1 / 2 0 1 9 1 6 childhood as principally about 'early learning'. Through an action learning approach we seek to understand these communities as complex contexts where race, class and culture intersect to inform understandings of young children and their belonging in a diverse South Africa (Rudolph, 2017).…”

Can videos affect learning outcomes? Evidence from an actual learning environment

“…Demands on working memory may be off-loaded by materials such as textbooks, instructor feedback, and multimedia (Mayer, 2019;Mutlu-Bayraktar et al, 2019;Rudolph, 2017b;Sweller, 2017;Xie et al, 2017). The more cognitive load is reduced by such cues, the more processing capacity can be utilized to detect the distinctions mentioned, and coordinate theoretical ideas better with evidence.…”

Data practices and inequality in South African early childhood development policy: Technocratic management versus social transformation

“…This allowed a few non-government organisations to develop innovative and progressive approaches, such as using a Freirian conscientisation approach and drawing on indigenous childcare practices (Biersteker 2018;Swart 1996). Community-based centres with children from three to six years and home visiting programmes located services close to where children lived, encouraging family and community participation (Rudolph 2017). In 1980, the apartheid government introduced a 'school readiness' bridging period to address the high failure and drop-out rate among children classified as 'black'.…”

“…Before the introduction of and dominant focus on Grade R, the standard model of early childhood provision was in community-based centres with children from three to six years. This format encouraged family and community participation and nurtured peer teaching and learning more closely aligned to traditional childcare arrangements (Rudolph 2017). The community-based system of provision has been eroded by age segregation and the flight of practitioners to better paying jobs in schools (Biersteker 2018), thus undermining the pre-1994 progressive work of non-governmental organisations and reproducing inequality on economic lines.…”