Mirrors and windows : a case study of the effectiveness of teaching strategies employed in racially diverse classrooms at one primary school in the Gauteng Province in South Africa

Abstract

This study used Bhaskar’s Critical Realist ontology as meta-theory reinforced by Margaret Archer’s Social Realist Theory as an analytical framework to help obtain a deeper understanding of the contributory mechanisms to the provision of equal opportunities to learn in racially diverse South African classrooms in a chosen primary school in Pretoria, South Africa. The study applied Archer’s Morphogenesis/Morphostasis analytical framework in an attempt to understand whether or not the school has transformed or reproduced the status quo on opportunities to learning after democracy. In particular, the study focused on the provision of equal opportunities to learn irrespective of their racial or cultural backgrounds. Archer’s analytical dualism was used to scrutinise the interaction between ‘parts’ (structure and culture) and the ‘people’ (agency). Thus, the focus was to uncover the fundamental factors that enable and constrain the provision of equal opportunities to learn in a class with racially diverse learners. This entailed the separation of structures (policies, systems, and the school governance structures), cultures (beliefs and values and how do they affect teaching and learning) and agents (people such as teachers, learners, school principals, amongst others and their ability to act (agency) within and upon their own world with regard to their social roles and positions to stimulate their emergent properties and powers. In this study, I explored how the emergent properties and powers contained in the learning resource material, policies, and ideational and agential components assisted in the production of certain actions and practices in relation to teaching and learning in a racially diverse environment. I examined these generative mechanisms to identify whether they enabled or constrained the provision of equal opportunities to learn within a racially diverse classroom context. Qualitative research methodologies were applied through the use of semistructured interviews, classroom observations and document analysis as data collection methods. At the domain of structure, the findings of the study revealed that the notion of ensuring that all learners have access to basic education without discrimination of any kind was a critical mechanism that provided learners from racially diverse contexts with physical access. Arabia (pseudonym) Primary School had enough classrooms and teaching and learning materials to cater for all learners. The South African Schools Act1 (SASA) (1996) and the admission policy of the school were found to be enabling factors in terms of admission of racially diverse learners into the school as there is no encouragement of discrimination of any kind. The school’s religious policy was also found to cater for the learners’ diverse religions, however, it is silent about learners who are not religious. The study found that there was a mismatch between the staff complement and learner enrolment as teachers were predominantly White while learners were mainly Black Africans. Ideally, it will be better for the school to strive towards a racially diverse teaching staff complement to match the racially diverse learners. The current situation may have implications for the provision of equal opportunities to learn. The study also realised that, since there was evidence of racial and cultural incongruity between learners and teachers, it might take time for the school to match the now racially diverse learner enrolment with a racially diverse staff complement. This may require transforming the staff complement through the employment of teachers who can speak different African languages and can accommodate and represent diverse cultures in teaching and learning. A constraining mechanism to the provision of equal opportunities to learn was the time assigned to some of the lessons. In some instances, it was found that lessons scheduled for thirty minutes were limited in terms of teaching and learning activities possible in this time frame, thereby hampering the provision of equal opportunities to learn. Within the domain of culture, an important mechanism that was identified was the discourse of the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). The LOLT, specifically English, was found constraining to the provision of equal opportunities to learn to learners of African descent. Learners whose home language was English benefited more in terms of knowledge and understanding of lessons compared to the majority of black African learners who spoke indigenous languages. This points to the need to review the language policy of the school in order to accommodate the local indigenous African languages. However, this may be a complex exercise considering that the black African learners speak different indigenous languages. In the domain of agency, the study found that the Head of Department (HoD) possessed the authority to guide teachers regarding the Learning Areas that they teach, the approaches to teaching and learning, as well as the learning activities that they have to carry out. This meant that they provided curriculum leadership, thus they could exercise more agency in this regard. Data also revealed that, although the curriculum was found to be relevant to racially diverse classes, teachers were unable to integrate racial diversity to the topics covered in the prescribed textbooks, particularly those that were largely based on western knowledge. This implied that teachers who participated in the study were not prepared for racially diverse classes. It will be necessary to integrate learners’ indigenous knowledge into the western knowledge content and concepts in order to enhance their epistemological access and provide equal opportunities to learn, thus appreciating local community knowledge in education and development. Curricula should also be reviewed in order to align them to the school’s clientele base/learners towards enabling the provision of equal opportunities to learn. Overall, this study concludes that, although the school had experienced Morphogenesis in terms of learner enrolment from a predominantly racially singular to a racially diverse learning population. However, the apartheid-era culture of the school was still reproduced due to the Morphostasis of the (White) teacher complement, the languages taught and the dominant school culture that was not congruent with the majority of the (Black) learners. I believe that the findings from this study may provide the conceptual and empirical foundations towards understanding whether teachers provide or fail to provide equal opportunities to learn in racially diverse classrooms in a country emerging from apartheid. I note that this is a singular case study that is not necessarily generalisable. However, it can provide insights into the extent of provision of equal opportunities to learning for the racially diverse learner population across South African schools.