Search Results (15)

In this article, we examine how Black mothers devised strategies of resistance to prepare and protect their children during the Jim Crow era. Grounded in Black feminist standpoint theory, we rely on Black women’s own perspectives to understand how interlocking systems of oppression shaped their mothering experiences and practices. We use Dedoose cloud-based software to conduct a content analysis of 210 oral histories from two oral history repositories. Our grounded theory approach to data analysis entailed a multistage coding process, revealing that Black mothers strategized to provide their children choices in the present that would give them more freedom and opportunities in the future. We refer to this mothering practice as the cultivation of “freedom choices”. Freedom choices seek to minimize the hindrances and restraints that shape the choices available to Black children and to expand their available options. Black mothers fostered freedom choices by relying on both informal and formal education. They used informal education to teach their children restraint, resistance, and when to deploy which, and how to negotiate space. Black mothers facilitated their children’s educational pursuits in the face of structural barriers by (1) leveraging their own sweat equity, (2) tapping into their mutual aid networks, (3) challenging landowners, and (4) insisting on prioritizing their children’s education even when their partners did not. Full article

Ideas about shared religious education are in need of further exploration in post-apartheid South Africa. This is necessary, considering the contributions from faith communities in their shared resistance to apartheid. While some sectors of the Christian community, and particularly the Dutch Reformed Church provided a religious justification for apartheid, other denominations, together with Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu communities struggled against this white supremacist ideology. In other ways, the neglect of the potential of shared religious education provides an apt commentary on how some within-faith communities responded to a democracy by retreating into faith identities, as made explicit in the proliferation of faith-based schools. It follows, however, that if religious communities can mobilise together to resist the apartheid state, then it should be possible for these same communities to unite to work towards the kind of transformed society envisioned in their struggle against apartheid. Hence, the interest of this article: if faith-based schools are an inevitable manifestation of democratic and pluralistic societies, then what can these schools share in terms of content and ethos towards advancing democratic values? How might a shared religious education facilitate and sustain the reform measures, necessary for social transformation in South Africa? Full article

The Human Development Index is a useful measure of a country’s overall prosperity and standard of living (HDI). The Human Development Index (HDI) provides data on the social and economic progress of a nation by accounting for variables such as life expectancy, education attainment, and per capita income. This research delves into the intricate correlation of a nation’s historical background, policy framework, and advancements on the Human Development Index. The remarkable journey of South Africa, from apartheid to inclusive growth, is an important example. The study uses an average yearly growth rate to examine how changes in political ideologies, ongoing development initiatives, and historical contexts of inequality have shaped South Africa’s HDI trajectory. By examining crucial turning points and policy influences, the study aims to reveal the complex relationship of factors affecting human development results. Despite improvement, challenges like unemployment and poverty continue. The study stresses the relevance of understanding historical context and policy changes in shaping HDI outcomes. Ultimately, the study emphasises the need of maintaining a long-term commitment to effective and inclusive human development policies. Understanding the complex relationship of factors influencing South Africa’s HDI will help policymakers make better informed decisions that will lead to a more prosperous and fair society for all South Africans. Full article

Black pregnant women in Chicago are disproportionately affected by maternal morbidity and mortality and are more likely to reside in neighborhoods that experience greater economic hardships and food apartheid than any other race/ethnicity. Addressing social determinants of health such as structural inequities, economic environment, and food apartheid issues may provide insights into eliminating Black maternal morbidity and mortality disparities. This study explores food choice determinants and dietary perspectives of young, urban, Black pregnant women. Two audio-recorded focus groups were conducted in Chicago, IL between March 2019 and June 2019 to discuss pregnancy experiences and factors affecting maternal nutrition. Thematic analysis was used to identify the codes, themes, and subthemes of the data. Data analysis was guided by the Social Ecological Model (SEM) as a theoretical framework. Eleven, young, Black women were recruited. Three major themes were discussed across the SEM levels that influenced food choice including food access, stress and family influences on eating, and the need for nutritional education during pregnancy. These choices were primarily rooted in the detrimental effects of food apartheid experienced within the participants’ neighborhoods. Therefore, acknowledging, understanding, and addressing food apartheid and its impact on Black maternal health disparities is needed in clinical practice, research, and policy change. Full article

Ubuntu has been defined as a moral quality of human beings, as a philosophy or an ethic, as African humanism, and as a worldview. This paper explores these definitions as conceptual tools for understanding the cultural, educational, and philosophical landscape of post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this understanding is the Althusserian concept of state apparatus. Louis Althusser divides the state apparatus into two forces: the repressive state apparatus (RSA); and the ideological state apparatus (ISA). RSAs curtail the working classes, predominately through direct violence or the threat of violence, whereas ISAs function primarily by ideology, including forms of organised religion, the education system, family units, legal systems, trade unions, political parties, and media. This paper discusses the link between increasing inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and education, with specific reference to Althusser’s ISAs and the abuse of Ubuntu as a subterfuge for socio-economic inequality. Full article

The imperial nature of Christianity structured around colonialism, white supremacy, and apartheid was governed by racially motivated logics that fundamentally define the idea of who could be human. Decades later, the uncomfortable emphasis on decoloniality in South African theological education arises in a contested space despite the need to decentre white, Western methods, interpretations, and experiences. Academic readiness and ownership regarding the implementation of decolonisation initiatives constitute a significant obstacle. They highlight how coloniality mediates and attempts to erase decolonising praxis. This article employs the theoretical framing of Grosfoguel’s analysis of the coloniality of power, of knowledge, and of being, surveys recent educational developments in theological education towards redress to reveal a hesitancy and considers the perspective change of educators towards decolonisation praxis. This article underscores a contextual challenge for the legitimacy of decolonialisation and the need to restore its significance amidst the slow pace of educational transformation in theological education. Full article

The global challenges of biodiversity loss and persistent poverty and inequality, which interact and shape each other at the local scale, require new strategies to improve human well-being and conserve biodiversity. In South Africa, inclusive and transformative conservation approaches are gaining support, which is of particular importance given the challenging history of conservation during the colonial and apartheid eras. The Dinokeng Game Reserve was created to conserve biodiversity and combat poverty in adjacent communities. However, human–elephant conflict and community development challenges have led to unproductive conservation trade-offs. We developed a Theory of Change for Living in Harmony that can help policymakers, conservation organisations and local communities to find better solutions. To develop the Theory of Change, we assessed the visions and perspectives towards (elephant) conservation and socio-economic development among both people living inside (owners/direct beneficiaries) and outside (community/indirect beneficiaries) the reserve. The study revealed common ground among stakeholder groups in ranking elephant benefits, as well as a collective acknowledgement of the importance of moral values in conservation decision making. However, the benefits of living within or adjacent to an elephant reserve differed considerably across stakeholder groups. Accordingly, different but not mutually exclusive solutions were suggested, including investments in multi-level good governance, education and capacity building, active community engagement and development, reserve expansion, and promoting the reserve’s integrated conservation model. This Theory of Change aims to support common ground between stakeholders, with critical feedback loops that reduce barriers and enable conditions for coexistence. It promotes conservation strategies that are socially relevant and widely supported, can create mutually beneficial outcomes for elephants, biodiversity, and multiple stakeholders, and can be applied to other species or ecosystems in general, with specific elements being tailored to those circumstances. Full article

South Africa has a colonial and apartheid past of social injustice, epistemological oppression, and exclusion. These mechanisms are historically inscribed in the designs, practices, and content of higher education—including in occupational therapy curriculum. If these historical markers are not consciously interrogated, patterns of reproduction are reified along the fault lines that already exist in society. The focus of this article is to demonstrate how an archaeological Foucauldian method was crafted from foundational Foucauldian archaeology analytics and existing approaches of Foucauldian discourse analysis to unearth the rules of the formation of the occupational therapy profession. These rules pertain to the formation of (a) the ‘ideal occupational therapist’; (b) who had a say about the profession; (c) the ways of preferred reasoning; and (d) underlying theoretical themes and perspectives about the future. Data sources for this archaeology analytics included commemorative documents of universities on the origin of their programmes; historical regulatory documents; and the South African Journal of Occupational Therapy archive from the period 1953–1994. The analysis rendered two subthemes for each of the rules of formation including ‘white exceptionalism’, white male national, and international, regulatory bodies, the profession’s know-how practical knowledge, and its need for recognition within a bio-medical paradigm. Unearthing the historical markers of a curriculum and viewing it as discourse may enable a conscious reconfiguration thereof. Full article

This study emerged from a desire to understand the motivation of teachers to teach in challenging school contexts on the Cape Flats of South Africa where the legacy of apartheid continues to impact the quality of teaching and learning as the communities experience abject poverty, violence, and gang activity and have little regard for schooling, teachers, or education. This qualitative study employed an interpretative paradigm to understand the personal, lived experiences of teachers teaching in three purposively selected primary schools in Manenberg on the Cape Flats. The participants agreed to at least one semi-structured interview with follow-up questions for clarity if required. The findings suggest that the motivation of the teachers to teach at schools in a marginalised community is positively linked to the relationships they develop with their teacher community and the students and their families. If these relationships are positive, teachers are able to live out their beliefs and remain committed to the school community, which increases their perceived levels of self-efficacy and therefore their motivation to teach in the Manenberg area. Where they have support from the larger school community, their motivation is further enhanced. This motivation can be applied to countries with marginalised communities, particularly countries in the global south. Full article

In April 1994, South Africa underwent the most significant change in its recent history with the disbandment of the policy of apartheid and the attendant race-based politics, which affected most aspects of the country and, of relevance to this review, the education, health delivery, and career choices that race groups could pursue. In the past 28 years, the South African government has tried to implement policies in order to advance political and socioeconomic shifts toward a more equitable society. The healthcare sector was an early target for transformation that was aimed at increasing access to services and the expansion of primary healthcare and hospital facilities to previously underserved areas. This paper seeks to discuss these changes in broad terms, but with specific reference to general health care and pharmacy practice in particular. It will look at the changes in the legislative framework and pharmacy education and factors impacting the pharmacy practices in South Africa over the past 28 years. A discussion of the critical issues that have affected the profession in the last three decades will also be delineated, and future prospects for the profession as a whole, in terms of pharmacy practice and perspectives, will be discussed. We review the current aspects of the pharmacy profession in South Africa today and how the education of those future professionals is a major contribution to the pharmaceutical climate. Full article

Since the 1960s Australian Jewry has doubled in size to 117,000. This increase has been due to migration rather than natural increase with the main migration groups being South Africans, Russians, and Israelis. Of the three, the South Africans have had the most significant impact on Australian Jewry—one could argue that this has been transformative in Sydney and Perth. They have contributed to the religious and educational life of the communities as well as assuming significant community leadership roles in all the major Jewish Centres where they settled. This results from their strong Jewish identity. A comparative study undertaken by Rutland and Gariano in 2004–2005 demonstrated that each specific migrant group came from a different past with a different Jewish form of identification, the diachronic axis, which impacted on their integration into Jewish life in Australia, the synchronic axis as proposed by Sagi in 2016. The South Africans identified Jewishly in a traditional religious manner. This article will argue that this was an outcome of the South African context during the apartheid period, and that, with their stronger Jewish identity and support for the Jewish-day- school movement, they not only integrated into the new Australian-Jewish context; they also changed that context. Full article

Post-apartheid South Africa, almost three decades into the democracy, is a society in crisis, facing burgeoning economic and social challenges. Religion is seen as a potential force in supporting social cohesion and nation building. Theological education in its handling of diversity and decoloniality reveals complicity and avoidance. A significant task is to embrace the ‘other’ and to affirm the equality and dignity of all people, bearing in mind there is sufficient theological impetus for this. A key question for this study is how theological education can engage in an intercultural ideal towards authentic participation in the development of society. This article reveals the resources and process of embodied formative education within a mediated learning environment to create a hospitable space for learning about differences. It also allows for antiracist pedagogies to be realised within this safer community. Attention is also given to on how epistemological justice and decolonisation is engaged, envisioning a less domineering approach to theological education that makes space for other voices. This contextual case study affirms African identity, revealing humanising education that can support political change at an interpersonal level, as well as at a geo-political level, in its decolonial agenda of creating an engagement of equals. Full article

In this article the author shall argue that before Namibian independence in 1990, Christianity was used by some as a weapon of breaking down, or as a tool of, colonialism, racism, and apartheid. In the name of a religious god unashamed acts of violence and wars were committed and resulted in genocide of 1904 to 1908. However, such brutalities did not conquer the African spirit of what is identified in this article as the Ubuntu (humaneness). Inspired by their sense of Ubuntu the Africans, in the face of German colonialism and the South African imposed Apartheid system, finally emerged victorious and accepted the model of religious pluralism, diversity, and the principle of African Ubuntu. We shall, furthermore, argue that the Namibian educational system and the Namibian Constitution, Articles 1 and 21, the Republic of Namibia is established as a secular state wherein all persons shall have the right to freedom to practise any religion and to manifest such practice. It means religious diversity and pluralism is a value, a cultural or religious or political ideology, which positively welcomes the encounter of religions. It is often characterized as an attitude of openness in a secular state towards different religions and interreligious dialogue and interfaith programs. As an example we shall focus on the subject of Religious and Moral Education where such religious diversity and pluralism are directly linked to political, social, and economic issues, as well as moral values. Full article

The study examines a case of how the South African construction industry nurtured an entrepreneur and a large successful entrepreneurial construction company, even though the founder had no formal education and the company was founded during the Apartheid era. The question of whether entrepreneurs are born or are made is based on the age-old question of nurture or nature. The paper presents the narratives of the successful entrepreneur Mr. Sam Lubbe and the business strategy he used in growing a sustainable business. The information presented is collected through a case study research approach. The data collected suggests that although Sam does not have any formal education, he succeeded based on the nurturing given to him when he had the opportunity to work for a large South African construction company, his innate characteristics of self-confidence, task–result orientation, and originality, as well as his planning for the future and the use of a unique business model which helped him access international construction work opportunities. The study of this particular individual and his unique company is significant because it further validates previous research undertaken in other contexts and sectors on the traits of entrepreneurs and the success of companies. Full article