(Re-)positioning educational psychology in high-risk school communities

The Influence of School Organisational Variables on School Violence in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

“…The Eastern Cape Department of Education, like the Western Cape Department of Education (2003), draws a distinction between high-risk and low-risk schools. While the Western Cape Department of Education (2003), in line with the argument by Dunbar-Krige, Pillay and Henning (2010) as well as Masitsa (2011), places the environment where the school is situated at the centre in their classification of schools as high-risk or low-risk schools, the Eastern Cape Department of Education (2010) places the school at the centre. According to a spokesperson from the Eastern Cape Department of Education, schools in this province are classified as high-risk schools on the grounds of the "number of incidences of violence reported at schools".…”

Teachers becoming lay practitioners of school community psychology

“…Community psychology as a field developed at times of great change and hardship (see Krige et al 2010). Reliance on internal resources -one of them being the teachers' sense of care and compassion that was prevalent in all the data -is an important tenet of this field, and is documented in its scholarly domain (APA 2010;Trickett, as cited in Krige et al 2010).…”

“…Dunbar-Krige et al (2010) argue for a 'recontextualisation' of community psychology, situating the school as the social 'communitas' and pursuing what strengths schools have as tools in the activity of supporting their community. For social upliftment, a realistic, asset-orientated approach to mental health care-giving is essential.…”

“…This is also why the notion of a specific brand of community psychology, which centres schools as action hubs, is important. We thus couch this article in what Krige, Pillay and Henning (2010) argue for -the establishment of the notion of school community psychology (the lay practice of members of school communities) in the discourse. With that we also argue for what the cultural theorist, Turner (1982), refers to as a togetherness in 'communitas' (see also Van Heerden 2009), in the face of extreme social upheaval.…”