'Black children in a white school' : language, ideology and identity in a desegregated South African primary school

Abstract

This thesis is an account of a qualitative study, which set out to investigate how black \nmultilingual children in their first year of formal schooling are socialised into the \ncultural practices, particularly the English language practices, and ethos at a former \nwhite English medium school in South Africa. This study is interdisciplinary drawing \non social theories and poststructuralist epistemology to explore the relationship \nbetween ideology, language/knowledge practices and identity. In particular, I consider \nthe discursive construction of English as legitimate language, while other forms of \nrepresentation are viewed as 'abnormal'. \nSet in the context of post-apartheid South Africa, the study was located in a \ndesegregated primary school in a suburban area of Johannesburg. Data was collected \nusing ethnographic methods and drawing on the traditions of school ethnography. \nQualitative data collection methods included non-participant observation, video \nrecordings of classroom interactions, audio recordings of interviews, and learners' \ntasks. Forms of discourse analysis, blending approaches from sociology, education \nand applied linguistics, are used to analyse social interaction as a discursive site where \nresources are validated and marginalised, and as a site of identity construction. \nBourdieu's notions of linguistic capital, linguistic markets and linguistic habitus \ninform my analysis. The analysis will also be located in Foucault's work, which sets \nout the constitutive forces, and discursive practices by which identities are constructed \nand negotiated within institutional contexts. The study reveals that proficiency in \nEnglish, and access to specific cultural practices associated with English, enables \nlearners with those resources to claim certain identity positions while those who do \nnot have access to them become disadvantaged and marginalised. Despite the \nlinguistically diverse nature of the institution, the school practices, discourse and \nethos work toward monolingualism. I argue that the value and legitimacy attached to \nEnglish plays a significant role in how black multilingual children in year one of \nschooling imagine themselves as members of this community. Through making \nvisible, the ideological practices and assimilationist activities, especially with regard \nto dominant language/knowledge, this study hopes to raise questions of inequality and \nsocial justice in a society in transformation.

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