Yesterday and Today, Vol. 26 (2021)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/85669

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Utilizing a Historically Imbedded Source Based Analysis Model (HISBAM) in the history school classroom
(The South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Bunt, Byron; Warnich, Pieter
This paper aims to elucidate upon a model that imbeds historical skills, concepts and categorizations into a source-based analysis approach utilizing levels of cognitive complexity by combining different types of sources into a coherent system. This model will focus on the South African school context. In this paper, concepts such as cause and effect and chronology will be explored, as well as historical categorizations of social, economic and political history. The taxonomy of source-based questioning will also be highlighted, as well as the variety of sources that could be used in a history classroom. Various theories and perspectives have emerged in the field of History, and these will also be explored to better understand the model in question. The paper will conclude with an in-depth explanation as to how this Historically Imbedded Source-Based Analysis Model could be used in the history classroom and the potential benefits that this model holds.
"Better a barefoot than none”: influences of nationalist ideologies on girlhood in the history classroom
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Woest, Y.
This study adopted autoethnography as a research methodology to relive and reflect on my experiences as a White Afrikaner girl in a history class during the apartheid era in South Africa. This paper focuses on how the grand narratives of Afrikaner Nationalist ideologies and Whiteness in South Africa influenced girlhood or girl-becoming within the History classroom during apartheid in the late 1980s. This paper purposefully interrogates how ideologies of white supremacy, such as ordentlikheid (ethnicised respectability), found their way into the micro-context of a primary school history classroom through small acts of oppression. Epistemologically, I underpin this this paper by an interpretative paradigm to justify the meaning-making of personal experiences, which form the core of this paper. Methodologically, the study adopted a qualitative approach, and the research design comprised of an autoethnography. Data consisted of a personal narrative developed from a reflective piece of personal free writing into a crafted story by relying on memory work and checked by verisimilitude to remember specific details. I was the sole participant in that I generated the data through my narrative. An analysis of the findings showed ‘place’ as predominant convergence of identity marker, namely the place of ‘outsider-girlhood’ within the socio-educational context and intersectionality as Nationalist influence on white girlhood. I conclude the paper with my final reflections as a form of meaning-making.
Silenced and invisible historical figures in Zambia : an analysis of the visual portrayal of women in senior secondary school history textbooks
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Mboyonga, Edward
Despite their significant contribution to the country’s historical development, women’s influence is commonly underestimated and ignored in Zambian history literature. Subsequently, their role remains undocumented in secondary school textbooks to the extent that the sex blindness of traditional historiography, which sustains male dominance in history, remains unchallenged in the books. Through a qualitative approach and purposive sampling of two Zambian secondary school Grade 12 learners’ history textbooks, the study examined the portrayal of women. Located within the decoloniality paradigm, it counters the coloniality of power manifested through the insularity of dominant patriarchal historical narratives entrenched in the secondary school history curriculum, largely reflecting the remnants of colonial epistemologies and historiographical traditions. The findings in both textbooks reveal that the female characters are silenced and invisible compared to their male counterparts, reflecting the patriarchy hegemony in the secondary school Zambian history curriculum. In decolonising colonial power manifested in the curriculum, the study recommends mainstreaming gender equality in the history curricula and teaching and learning materials, mainly the learners' textbooks, to reflect women’s achievements.
Education and the public good : foregrounding education in history
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Smith, Edwin T.; Smith, Edwin T.
Historians can contribute significantly to education historiography to bolster education transformation. Contemporary scholarship in education, in the main, mostly wrestles with the current dispensation’s transformation of education policy endeavours in the post-apartheid era. While there is no substantial or insurmountable disagreement on the education policy objectives in post-apartheid South Africa, much of the contestations seem to arise from how these objectives should be realised to achieve their lofty ideals. This is where learning from history is important. History is not merely concerned with constructing knowledge through relooking the past but also attending to the “selection” and “silences” over time. Among other things, South Africa’s history also provides significant insights into how education contributed to developing a first-world economy in the country. This article argues that, because of education’s ability to enable social and economic mobility to affect families, communities, and society in general positively, education is a public good that requires historians’ involvement and attention. The article also considers the significance of funding education as a public good. Consequently, the paper argues that historians can make a significant contribution to transforming education in their continuous rewriting of history to learn from the past and foreground education as a public good in the past and present for the future.
How should a national curriculum for history be quality assured? the case of the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS)
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Siebörger, Rob
The South African Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, known as Umalusi, embarked on a project to quality assure the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) curriculum for schools (2011) in 2012. This article analysis the process in terms of the history curriculum and provides a commentary on universal principles for the quality assurance of national curricula in general. Six quality assurance measures are identified and discussed: comparison between the outgoing and the incoming curricula; entry- and exit-level requirements; internal comparison between Phases [Key Stages] of the curriculum; comparison of the history curriculum statement with statements for other curriculum subjects; current trends in history education; and comparison with history curricula in other countries. Conclusions are drawn for Umalusi and its practice, the CAPS curriculum itself, and the history curriculum.
Fallism as decoloniality : towards a decolonised school history curriculum in post-colonial-apartheid South Africa
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2022) Maluleka, Paul
The 2015/16 student protests in South Africa, dubbed #MustFall protests, signalled a historic moment in the country’s post-colonial-apartheid history in which student-worker collaborations called for the decolonising of the university and its Eurocentric curriculum and, by extension, basic education and its Eurocentric curriculum too. Since then, there have emerged two dominant narratives of decolonisation in South Africa. The first is what I call a nativist delinking approach that recentres decolonial and Africa-centeredness discourses, ontologies, and epistemologies relatively separate from Euro-north and American-centric ones. The second is a broader, inclusive approach to decolonisation, which this study adopts. However, both these dominant narratives fail to counter much of the knowledge blindness informed by a false dichotomy advanced by positivist absolutism and constructive relativism that defines the sociology of education, including many of the calls for decolonisation. Thus, through a decolonial conceptual framework and Karl Maton’s Epistemic-Pedagogic Device as a theoretical framework, fallism as decoloniality is adopted in this study to propose ways to transcend the Eurocentrism that characterises the current school history curriculum in South Africa, as well as the nativist and narrow provincialism of knowledge. Equally, an argument is made for the advancement of an inclusive decolonial project that is concerned with relations within knowledge and curriculum and their intrinsic structures
People, space and time strategy : teaching history through image analysis at a rural secondary school in Limpopo Province
(South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), 2021) Thotse, Mahunele
Efficient teaching approaches are critical to promote a positive attitude among learners of History at secondary schools. Learners’ behaviour during History lessons and attitude towards the subject can be affected by a number of factors, including teaching methods, teaching styles, teacher’s commitment and work ethic, etc. The study was conducted to examine the effect of using images in relation to the behaviour and attitude of learners towards the subject History. The study applies analytical research involving learners from a convenient group of schools around Mankweng in the use of the People, Space and Time (PST) image analysis strategy as a teaching strategy to affect the behaviour of learners towards the subject History. It uses image analysis to determine the effect of PST on the voluntary participation of learners in the History classroom. The results show that with careful organisation of visuals and crafting of questions, the PST method had a significant positive effect on learners’ behaviour and attitude towards the subject. It was also observed that an increased number of learners responded comfortably to PST during class discussions. Teacher mentors have also shown interest in this strategy as learners seemed lively in class, with disinterest turning into interest as learner participation increased. The study concluded that an expert analysis of images is a key resource in the teaching of History.

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