Background
Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South African society has undertaken a comprehensive reform process. The goal was and is the formation of a democratic, multi-cultural society. The reforms have had an immense impact on almost every aspect of everyday life. The first post-apartheid government attempted to dissolve the unjust social action maxims of the past and identified the education system as a key area for successful reorganization of the state.
An important field in this regard was the teaching of history, in which national narratives are typically consolidated or transformed. The overriding question was how South Africa could deal with its own past, whether what had happened and what was cruel should be named openly or whether a historical "cut" should be made that would allow a new beginning in the relationship between the ethnic groups. Extensive academic and public discourse took place - in newspapers, on the streets and in lecture halls. The Georg Eckert Institute also participated in these debates of the early 1990s by organizing conferences on questions of how to design new textbooks.
In 1995 steps were introduced to begin reforming the history curriculum. The process proved to be a bumpy one. The changes that were introduced were not widely approved of by teachers or educators and were implemented slowly, or not at all, within the strongly heterogeneous education landscape. The situation appeared generally confusing: While in 1998 policy makers had declared completely new teaching and learning paradigms under the optimistic name ‘Curriculum 2005’, many changes had to be reversed and adapted to school practices. As a result, 2011 saw the release of the fourth curriculum in 16 months.
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Methodology
Against this background, the project worked on how the past is dealt with in education. In doing so, the study examined the circumstances and genesis of the curriculum, which is loaded with ideology and "meaning" as in hardly any other subject. Studies of the South African curriculum have so far taken place primarily in the context of policy analysis. Because of this, there is generally little knowledge of how the classroom situation "works" and how students in South Africa respond to their own history-especially when it includes potentially "dangerous" content.
Therefore, in a second step, the study undertook a comprehensive ethnographic investigation of the common practices of teaching history about recent South African (apartheid) history. This part of the research examined the young people's interactions in their peer group, the non-formal exchange of information, and possible areas of conflict regarding recent South African history.
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Results
- Hues, Henning, Same Textbooks – Different Perspectives. Discussing apartheid in two very different South African school settings. In: Naseem, N. Ayaz (Hrsg.), Representation of minorities in textbooks, curricula and educational media, Rotterdam: Sense (2013, im Erscheinen)
- Hues, Henning, "Mandela, the Terrorist. Intended and hidden history curriculum in South Africa", in: Journal for Educational Media, Memory and Society 3 (2), 2011, 74-95.
- Hues, Henning & Katalin Morgan, "The raising of the flag in ‘Volkstaat’ Orania: Perspectives on a school ceremony", in: Education as Change 14 (1) 2010, 33–46.
