The Democratization of Schools and the Politics of Teachers’ Work in South Africa
- 1 June 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education
- Vol. 29 (2), 111-126
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0305792990290202
Abstract
As the South African state begins to democratize, so questions are raised about how this process might be mediated by schools and teachers or how schools’ and teachers’ practices might inform the wider process of social change. This paper explores these issues through an examination of how teachers sought to alter relations of authority and the nature of their work within schools, and how these have interacted with new managerial and state initiatives. It examines the conditions of teachers’ work under apartheid, the challenge to these by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and the struggles in schools over changing relations of authority and teachers’ work in the crucial transition years of 1990‐1997. It argues that alternative conceptions and practices were developed and institutionalized. This paper uses the results of both a 3 year longitudinal study and research conducted on teacher appraisal with the teachers’ union.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- The contradictions of scientific management as a mode of controlling teachers' work in black secondary schools: South AfricaInternational Journal of Educational Development, 1997
- Schoolwork: interpreting the labour process of teachingBritish Journal of Sociology of Education, 1988
- Schooling for bureaucracy in NigeriaInternational Journal of Educational Development, 1984