Youthscapes: the politics of belonging for ‘Makwerekwere’ youth in South African schools

Abstract

to "welcome" and "include". {110}

Between Exclusion and Political Engagement: Conceptualizing Young People’s Everyday Politics in the Postwar Setting of Sri Lanka

“…Sen's (2000) research on social exclusion has focused on relational features with deprivation of capability among poor people. Recently, such research has been directed towards understanding 6 structural as well as social processes that lead to individuals and groups living on the margins of society (Gingrich, 2008;Vandeyar, 2013). Understanding political engagement based on social exclusion focuses primarily on relational issues and social ties, such as family, friends, local communities, state services and institutions, and more generally the societies to which individuals belong (Bhalla and Lapeyre, 1997).…”

Contested spaces: Ethnicity and power in the world’s classrooms

“…Therefore, what looks and language do is define who is, or is not, ‘one of us’ – who belongs. That may be who belongs as a teacher at a particular school, in a particular part of South Africa (Davids and Waghid; Vandeyar, 2013) or which students belong in a maths lesson (Naidoo), or at after school language classes (Avery). The latter paper also identified that there is often an unspoken assumption of a hierarchy of learning spaces, in which ‘borrowed’ classroom space is constructed as a place of remedial or undervalued learning work by mother-tongue tutors and their pupils.…”

“…All of the papers included here have, at their heart, definitions of who belongs and who does not based on how people are classified through what is called ‘race’. Belonging is an important aspect of identity (May, 2013; Vandeyar, 2013; Yuval-Davis, 2011) so race, as with gender, dis/ability and so forth, as a qualifier of belonging, has an important part to play in general well-being and inclusion. This might be seen as being particularly relevant in an educational setting where children and young people are forming their identities.…”

“…Published debates around education, race and ethnicity in the UK have been largely dominated by a focus upon formal learning settings and commentators from within those contexts (Archer and Francis, 2007; Byrne, 2006; Gillborn, 1995, 2005; Heath and Brinbaum, 2007; Reay, 2009; Troyna, 1993). However, wider educational debates in Europe and the global South struggle with issues of race that seem perennial and deep-seated, in particular, in a European and South African context around educational responses to new migrants (Delanty et al., 2008; Essed, 2002; Fekete, 2004; Pisani, 2012; Vandeyar, 2013; Vandeyar and Vandeyar, 2012, 2014). As the voices of researchers working in Southern countries are seldom heard in the North in relation to education, race and ethnicity, it is especially pleasing to be able to include a number of papers from South African contributors.…”

Opposing Gazes: Racism and Xenophobia in South African Schools

“…Some of which has been expressed in violence against immigrants (Vandeyar, 2010;Vandeyar, 2011;Vandeyar, 2012;Vandeyar, 2013;Vandeyar & Vandeyar, 2012). There is controversy about whether that was xenophobia or racism or neither of that or just competition.…”