Books

In 1994, the South African teacher education landscape was fragmented across a wide variety of institutional sites. Ten years later, initial teacher education was taking place in a very different environment, shaped by a decade of far-reaching legislative, policy and structural changes. While change was necessary and inevitable after the democratic transition of 1994, successive waves of internal restructuring, college incorporation and higher education mergers placed heavy demands on both academics and management.

Conflicts in schools over race, fees or language frequently make headlines in South Africa. Such conflicts reflect the multifaceted issue of learner diversity, encompassing racial, class, gender, religious, linguistic, physical and other differences. The need to handle such differences in equitable ways poses new challenges for teachers and teacher education. How are teacher education institutions preparing students for teaching in schools that are different from the ones they experienced as learners? What kinds of skills are they providing to enable teachers to deal with diversity and difference amongst learners?

The quality of any national education system depends on its teachers. In recent years in South Africa, teacher supply has become a matter of national concern.

If you are sitting in a South African school or university right now, you need to put aside 1948 and "Bantu Education" as a primary target of enquiry – these were little more than steps along a road that was already paved – and study when, where and how your institution came into being in the first place. This book joins the growing body of work (much of it by South African scholars) displacing the many mind-numbingly dull texts loaded with assumptions and logics that, in the case of South Africa, reify a simplified colonial explanation of the past. Generations of students, educators and policymakers have suffered enough through tedious though inaccurate history books disguised as dispassionate, impartial views of "the facts."

This monograph investigates the responsiveness of technical colleges within the South African Further Education and Training (FET) sector. The report also explores technical and vocational education elsewhere in Africa and abroad. This study will be of interest to all who are involved in the FET sector, whether as policy-makers, practitioners or students.

Teenage Tata: Voices of young fathers in South Africa provides a fresh and in-depth portrait of impoverished young South African men who became fathers while teenagers. It provides space for their articulate and impassioned voices to be heard amidst the outcry against the absence of fathers, and offers insights into young fathers personal, emotional, financial and cultural struggles as they come to terms with fatherhood. The study highlights young fathers strong sense of responsibility; poignant accounts of emotional engagement with their children and the women in their lives; the motivating power of young fathers own absent fathers on their parenting intentions; their desire for sex- and relationship-education from male family members and their clear recognition of the help they need. Based on a multi-interview qualitative study in the informal settlements and townships around Cape Town and Durban, this monograph offers methodological innovations and showcases how social network interviews offer great potential for both research and intervention.

Textbooks and learning support materials are a critical resource for teachers. They play a vital role in shaping children's sense of themselves and the society in which they live. But to what extent do schoolbooks reflect images and representations of the diverse learners in South African schools?

Author Sylvia Neames study of the development of the national liberation movement in South Africa is in stark contrast to the frequent depictions of the history of the ANC by leading academics as fragmented, fractured and discontinuous. Not only does her analyses disprove the belief that the ANCs development has been episodic, several of the conclusions drawn point to its essential inner coherence.

Author Sylvia Neames study of the development of the national liberation movement in South Africa is in stark contrast to the frequent depictions of the history of the ANC by leading academics as fragmented, fractured and discontinuous. Not only does her analyses disprove the belief that the ANCs development has been episodic, several of the conclusions drawn point to its essential inner coherence.

Author Sylvia Neames study of the development of the national liberation movement in South Africa is in stark contrast to the frequent depictions of the history of the ANC by leading academics as fragmented, fractured and discontinuous. Not only does her analyses disprove the belief that the ANCs development has been episodic, several of the conclusions drawn point to its essential inner coherence.