APLICACIONES INDUSTRIALES Y ESPECIALES

The literature discussed thus far has sought to contextualise language, inequality and social cohesion within South African education, arguing that the tensions between past and present have complex consequences for how diversity is negotiated at varying levels. A further area of complexity exists within the school context, and in teacher practices. The school is the site at which these multiple social forces intersect, and where teacher practices are embedded within a wider school culture. Thus, the symbolic elements of schooling are addressed in this section in order to understand how meaning is negotiated and transformed in the process of teaching and learning.

Maxwell and Ross Thomas (1991) suggest that school cultures are comprised of beliefs, values, behaviours and knowledges that are produced, reproduced and contested in the everyday functions and interactions of the school and its members. Schools are also able to develop identities around particular narratives and characteristics such as academic excellence, cultural and sporting performance, activism or community engagement, and can instrumentalise these to attract quality teachers and high-performing learners. Conversely, weak perceptions of a school’s institutional culture can have a knock-on effect on the self-perception and performance of its members, creating a cyclical relationship between school culture and reproduction of that culture. Relating to this, Gaziel (1997) suggests that strong institutional culture is an indicator of productivity due to an established consensus regarding common values and goals. However it is important to bear in mind that this consensus may be dependent on particular silences and arrangements of power and authority, and cannot be accepted as arising from solely democratic processes. Maxwell and Ross Thomas further argue that school cultures are comprised of both covert and overt values, beliefs and behaviours, which together create a complex terrain for learners and teachers to negotiate in order for learning to take place (1991).

An element of school culture that is critical to this study is the hidden curriculum. Kentli (2009) and Giroux (1978) provide important insights here. It is firstly pertinent to note that the term ‘hidden’ implies clandestine intention and in a liberal democratic context it is important to discard notions of deliberate cultural violence in the classroom through teaching values that undermine students’ agency, values and

social experiences, unless this can be definitively proven. South Africa’s numerous policies, standards and frameworks for education indicate progressive and integrational intentions that conflict with other discourses of efficiency and globalisation, so where and how these ‘hidden’ curricula come into force is embedded within the everyday practices of schools, which Giroux refers to as ‘agents of socialisation’ (1978:148). Kentli argues that it is these unwritten or unintended curricula which inform the socialisation processes of the classroom that teach students prestige, good and deviant behaviour, excellence and participation, and not the formal content of the curriculum as dictated by policy and government direction (2009:83). Following the discussion of Fataar previously, she suggests that the disciplining and socialisation processes of schools also inculcate certain values and behaviours considered fundamental to constituting the good student, requiring students to adapt into behaviours that will afford them the social and linguistic capital needed for success (Kentli, 2009). Part of this may involve learning to suppress aspects of one’s identity in order to be accepted by peers or teachers, particularly for learners from working-class backgrounds and learners who occupy other ‘outsider’ positions (such as queer or foreign learners).

It is in this sense that the relational nature of linguistic identities and social inequalities can be considered to operate in the classroom at the level of interactions between teachers and learners. This is because the social and linguistic positions of learners are validated (or not) through processes of interaction with their peers and teachers, through the forms of knowledge that are legitimated or discarded in the learning process, and through the behaviours, values and attitudes that are encouraged or discouraged on a daily basis (Giroux, 1978; McKinney & Norton, 2008).

The works of Pierre Bourdieu (with Passeron, 1977; 1991) and Henry Giroux (1978; 1981; 1989) are important texts for drawing the links between culture and politics at large and how these are reproduced, contested and consolidated through the function of language as one form of symbolic capital. While symbolic capital is invested within individual esteem and achievement, cultural capital is the jointly- owned and –negotiated symbolic property of a group or society (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). The value accorded to the cultural properties associated with particular groups is often made particularly evident within the education systems

formed to facilitate the reproduction and neutralisation of it (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Cultural and symbolic capital are two important elements of the social and individual contexts learners and teachers bring into their classroom experience, and critical influences on which forms of knowledge are affirmed. As Giroux argues, schools are not neutral, objective spaces, and as they are the main sites where future citizens are socialised and conscientised, the manner in which teachers teach and students learn has significant consequences for the way particular values and ideologies become normalised (Giroux, 1989). Further, he notes that a conception of cultural hegemony is necessary to understand how certain forms of knowledge and culture become legitimated and neutralised in societies; namely, that ruling groups exercise an alliance of interests that submit the interests of other groups to elite will through a process of establishing common-sense assumptions about the nature of society, the economy, and mainstream culture ‘to establish its view of the world as all-inclusive and universal’ (Giroux, 1981:23). Bourdieu and Passeron consider this to be an exercise in symbolic violence in that it establishes the dominance of elite culture while rendering this domination invisible through neutralisation (1977:4).

Of fundamental importance is to recognise that this neutrality and domination is constantly negotiated, and its boundaries redefined in order to adapt into new circumstances. In the South African context the negotiated settlement saw a change in political power without a substantial change in economic power, with the result that two classes of elites exist in tension and collaboration with each other – white monopoly capital, which still largely controls key industries and the financial sector, and a black political elite, located in but not confined to the party political space (Alexander, 2013). This means that stakeholders in the education process come from a range of socio-economic and political perspectives and with differing agendas, and that this reflects on the liberal democratic values transmitted through the education system and the degree to which the current curriculum reflects the current political arrangement.

Giroux thus suggests that we consider a public schooling curriculum to be ‘a selection from the larger culture[s]’ (1981:123), and that this selection is rooted within a relationship to power that cannot be separated from the content and manner in which knowledge is organised into the official content transmitted to learners. The cultural capital of the dominant classes is transmitted through the education system

because it serves as the standard to which members of other classes are measured for entry into the labour market (Giroux, 1981, 1989; Bourdieu, 1991). This dialectical relationship between the education system and the economic (labour) market describes how performance in the school system – of which language acquisition is a fundamental component alongside numeracy skills – is often the primary means through which economic aspirations can later be achieved (Bourdieu, 1991:51) Education systems thus legitimate the dominant form of a language by using it as a form of knowledge transmission and showing its relation to future acquisitions in the economic market (Levinsohn, 2007).

However, as stressed before, this does not mean that the relationship between teaching and learning is deterministic, or that learners are empty receivers of ordained knowledge. Rather, the work of Bourdieu and Giroux is necessary to show that the process of education is inherently a process of socialisation into different kinds of citizenship for different kinds of people, and, as will be shown in this study, that learners are not unaware of this reality and respond to it in a variety of ways.

Davies, Hirsch and Graves Holmes (2007), in a dialogue on hidden curricula and social justice in education, argue that learners from working-class and foreign backgrounds are often considered to be deficient in some or other way that hampers their full integration into the educational process. They note that most learners can be expected to perform better under optimal circumstances, with the result that the high performance of learners in better-resourced schools and communities could almost be seen as a no-brainer, and the low performance of learners in poorer schools and communities cannot be solely reduced to individual weakness (Davies, Hirsch and Graves Holmes, 2007:100). Davies suggests that a Freirean model of ‘reading the world’ is a crucial step in encouraging learners from different backgrounds to engage critically with the texts that often provide their primary source of official knowledge and conceptions of the society into which they are being socialised, but moreover that learners are already adept at decoding texts that reflect negatively on their lived experiences (Davies, Hirsch and Graves Holmes, 2007:101).

The effects of teacher practices on learner identity formation are not solely an issue of pedagogy, but also relate to their conduct as professionals. In summarising a

range of literature on the issue, Gamble argues that teacher professionalism is contingent on coherence between the differing roles and duties that teachers are responsible for and must fulfil in order to do their work effectively (Gamble, 2008). This includes, but is not limited to, their management of the classroom, both in terms of resources and relationships; their ability to negotiate differing linguistic needs and competencies of learners, whether in terms of medium of instruction or specific language subjects; their implementation and navigation of the curriculum and learning materials, and their management of assessments and evaluations (Gamble, 2008:23). In the South African context, a key text influencing teacher professional conduct is the SACE Code of Professional Ethics (2000), which, while also dealing with the issues described above, also requires teachers to manage diversity effectively, deal sensitively with content, and instil a culture of mutual respect and value for learning in the classroom.

Notions of critical pedagogy, and critical language pedagogy, are an important consideration in attempting to understand how teacher practices can affirm or challenge established inequalities and differences. It is also necessary to engage with perspectives on education for diversity, especially in educating learners from historically marginalised or disadvantaged groups. Sleeter (2001), Msila (2007) and Kirkland (2008) reflect on different aspects of how these work at both the policy and practical level. Sleeter argues that teacher training needs to equip new teachers to grapple with the symbolic values of whiteness embedded in schools and learning materials (Sleeter, 2001:95). These values persist in differing circumstances, and critical pedagogies need to be deployed in order to affirm the identities of marginalised learners and grant esteem to their social and cultural artefacts (Msila, 2007; Kirkland, 2008). Important to what constitutes critical pedagogy is the element of challenging established or universalised knowledges that are taken for granted as official narratives. Teacher practices need to engage with the diverse contexts and experiences of learners in ways that are sensitive and transformative, employing their cultural resources in learning while also subjecting these to interrogation alongside those of the dominant culture (Giroux, 1989; Hyun, 2006). Hyun argues that a critical approach to pedagogy manages the boundary between making content relatable and making it an uncritical representation of learners’ lives, while also

including marginalised learners and not undermining learner experience in the process of teaching them to be reflexive agents (Hyun, 2006:22).

Soudien critiques critical pedagogy for containing elements of despair, arguing that its tendency towards anti-establishment thinking is polemical and fails to account for the reality that marginalised learners do not need to be ‘made aware’ of the circumstances they experience daily (2012). It is limiting for critical pedagogies to seek only to expose structures of domination, especially when the underlying relations of domination between and within groups, and within individuals, goes unacknowledged. Teachers and learners need to also recognise the conflicting knowledge they possess as it influences their understandings of curriculum knowledge (Giroux, 1981; Hyun, 2006; Soudien, 2012).

Kumaravadivelu (2003), Godley and Minnici (2008), and Li (2012) provide particular insights into language pedagogy as a specific field of study and enquiry. Li (2012) provides a detailed discussion of strategies for effective English language teaching. He suggests that language teacher pedagogy needs to be concerned with several key processes: developing and implementing challenging and relevant content; finding useful approaches to teaching different elements of the language; developing learners’ vocabulary and reading skills; inculcating knowledge of how to use language in different contexts, and integrating the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking (Li, 2012:3). Li further argues that teachers can affect learners’ motivation by using their languages as learning tools, and by teaching content that reflects and engages with issues relevant to their lives (2012), echoing Kirkland (2008) and drawing on perspectives in critical pedagogy. Kumaravadivelu (2003) discusses similar strategies to Lin, describing these as macro-strategies that can be developed into more specific measures for teachers within their contexts. Crucially, teaching in diverse contexts necessitates specific approaches by teachers in order to mitigate local structural, symbolic and social challenges to learning (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). This is especially important for teaching learners who do not speak the dominant language form, to avoid engaging in symbolic violence against their linguistic identities through teacher practices that privilege this form (Giroux, 1981). It is crucial to also recognise that teacher positionalities may influence this marginalisation of particular linguistic identities (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Godley and Minnici (2008) reflect on these issues in their discussion of critical language

pedagogy, arguing that teachers can draw on critical pedagogical approaches to engage learners practically on issues of linguistic diversity and identity, the privileging of particular linguistic forms, and the usefulness of their own linguistic repertoires for both learning and communication. They suggest that this is a crucial intervention in ensuring that learners develop agency in language learning, and critical attitudes to normalised linguistic arrangements (Godley & Minnici, 2008).

These perspectives show that the curriculum knowledge that learners engage with is embedded within school cultures that seek to foster particular kinds of learners and future citizens. Further, the use of language in invoking cultural dominance and modes of correctness is foundational to the manner in which some learners are legitimated and others are problematized. The conceptual framework draws the literature discussed above into a logic of how it will be operationalised in analysing the findings of the research.