Teaching Transformations

How do nations deal with their difficult, shameful, and traumatic past? I tackle this question by examining how the history of apartheid is taught to--and understood by--South African high school students. I further examine the consequences of these understandings for contemporary race relations. To address these questions around the production, reception, and consequences of history education in schools, the study draws on data collected during 18 months of fieldwork in two racially and socioeconomically diverse public high schools in Johannesburg, South Africa. The data collection involved a multi-method research design that included: 1) five months of daily observations in 17 distinct classrooms; 2) content analysis of official curricular documents and materials used in classes; 3) interviews with teachers (N=10); and 4) interviews with two samples of students: one prior to, and one following, exposure to apartheid history education (total N=160).