TEACHERS HAVE ROLE TO PLAY IN BUILDING SOCIAL COHESION

THE year 1994 was a deeply important one for South Africa. It ushered in a democratic society committed to the eradication of racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination. It brought political change that promised the building of a ‘rainbow nation’ committed to the ideas of equity and redress. There have been many accomplishments and significant changes in the past 22 years.

But recent events have raised questions about how far the country has really come in building a united non-racial society that embodies unity in diversity. Some have been negative and divisive - racially offensive, derogatory comments by individuals.
Others, like the country’s student protest movements, have opened up spaces for debate and got people thinking about issues of curriculum change and decolonisation.
Race talk and identification remains a concern within everyday social life. Different groups of people distrust each other deeply and continue to closely associate according to previous racial categorisations. The country’s apartheid past still casts a long shadow on its future.

To shake off this shadow, South Africans need a deeper understanding of what social cohesion means and how it can be attained. Research my colleagues and I recently completed also shows how important it is that teachers are provided with support to infuse their work with the principles of social cohesion.

In the South African context, social cohesion is about social integration, equality and social justice. It requires the promotion of positive relationships, trust, solidarity, inclusion, collectivism and common purpose.
Concerns about social cohesion have manifested in various ways. The government has hosted summits on the subject. It’s drafted a social cohesion strategy and even appointed ‘advocates’ to champion social cohesion.

There’s also been work in the education sector. The Department of Basic Education has launched a review of textbooks to identify instances of discrimination and bias.
It’s important that such work happens in the education sphere. Equitable, quality education plays a crucial role in building a nation. South Africa’s education system is anything but equitable. Research shows that in 2013, 87 per cent of white learners and 73 per cent of Indian learners were attending the country’s most well resourced public schools. Only six per cent of black African learners were enrolled in these schools.

The drive to understand how an equitable education system and social cohesion go hand in hand is what prompted our research.
We argue that social cohesion should be understood in relation to achieving durable social justice, eliminating all forms of inequities and disadvantage. We discovered that teachers need far more professional development, policy direction and support to ensure that social cohesion is realised in classroom teaching and learning.

Many policies since 1994 have been designed to empower teachers and improve their skills. But the area of social cohesion and teachers’ critical role in its promotion hasn’t received enough attention. There’s also a real danger that with so many demands in the national education agenda, issues like social cohesion are often devalued or not readily promoted. Schools tend to focus on ‘priority’ subjects like Science and Mathematics. They often ask why they should ‘waste time’ with issues like social cohesion

Actually, issues of social cohesion need to be integrated effectively across the curriculum.
High quality initial and continuing teacher professional development matters, too. Different universities with different cultural histories often rub up against students’ diverse racial, class and gendered identities.
They also strongly shape how student teachers think about the contexts they are set to enter. There isn’t a consistent approach across South Africa’s universities to how trainee teachers learn about social cohesion.
Those who educate teachers must pay better attention to how student teachers are empowered with a variety of teaching approaches and tools that will allow them to engage productively with learners and promote social cohesion.

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