An Analytic-critical reflection on an integrated arts education curriculum in a multicultural South Africa

Abstract

The structure of an education system and its curricula reflects the influence of a specific paradigm. Since the onset of colonial rule and apartheid in South Africa about everything in the South African society, including the education system and curricular issues in particular, have been shaped in accordance with the macro paradigm: the modern Western paradigm. The emergence of a new paradigm: the postmodern paradigm, created the possibility of a new order of thinking which influenced all societal domains and aspects and propelled the society into the new millennium. Since 1994 a new approach forms the corner stone of all the new South African policy documents on education. It is for this reason that the issue of an arts education curriculum is investigated from a paradigmatic point of view with reference to the modern, the postmodern and the African paradigms. Various components, roles and dynamics of educational curricula cast in the modern paradigm framework are compared with characteristics of their counterparts in the postmodern paradigm framework, and how they can influence the design of curricula, especially arts education. The contribution of an African paradigmatic perspective is accounted for. A new approach to curriculum development based on the ideals of a learner-centred education approach, an outcomes-based education approach and the integration of subjects into specific learning areas has officially been adopted as the approach for transforming education and curricular issues, resulting in the present Curriculum 2005. Within the context of the Arts and Culture learning area of this Curriculum, the study concentrates on and emphasises the integration of the four art forms of dance, drama, music and visual art in order to overcome the legacy of fragmentation of a curriculum. The study culminates in a proposed integrated arts education outline for curriculum development that defines the rationale and vision for South African arts education. The researcher contends that there is sufficient scope for arts education to contribute its unique aesthetic values to the new national curriculum in South Africa and that integration of these art forms does not in any way diminish the unique character of each.