| Summary |
A presentation made at the 2006 Understanding Human Sexuality Seminar in South Africa.
The paper draws on an interview study on the lives and identities of Grade 11 (16-17 year old) boys and girls in schools differing by race and social class composition in Durban a formerly Indian, formerly white girls and boys schools and a black township school. Class and racial inequalities are not only generated between pupils going to these different schools (so unequal are they in terms of resources) but also between pupils going to the same racially mixed formerly Indian and formerly white schools. This paper focuses on interviews conducted with black girls, and a key theme emerging from the black girls in the formerly Indian and formerly white schools was how marginalised they felt and how critical they were of forms of racism from other pupils and teachers. Black girls in the township school were less critical of forms of racism - many having never engaged with people of other races. The study was not specifically about race but about young peoples identifications, interests and relationships generally. Loosely structured and mono-ethnic interviews were conducted about being young people of their age, and in the interviews with black girls race, as well as sexuality was introduced and addressed in engaged ways by girls themselves, signalling their importance as themes in their lives. Rather than exploring race and sexuality in isolation of each other, the paper examines
how black girls, at these different schools, draw on heterosexuality when identifying themselves in relation to
girls (and boys) they construct as racial Others. Whereas school based studies on sexuality and black girls in
Southern Africa have tended to emphasise coercion, abuse and harassment, this paper examines how black girls
may use sexuality as a resource and source of self esteem in contexts where they feel subordinated racially and
as girls, even though, paradoxically, it may be in relation to heterosexuality that they feel particularly
subordinated. |
| More Details |
In schooling in post-apartheid South Africa enrolment of people from different races has occurred in the more affluent institutions, notably the formerly white schools enrolling middle class black and Indian students whose parents have moved to the catchment areas, and who can afford the school fees, while the much poorer educational establishments have become entrenched as black or Indian. Black schools in the townships and the rural areas are not referred to as formerly black schools since all the students and teachers are black (see Soudien 2004: 89) while (formerly) Indian schools, like the one in our study, may have a few black students. In our study Makgoba, the black township school, was indeed exclusively black, and the inferiority of the black township school no wide open spaces or nearby sports pitches, no trees, no buildings with stairs, no long corridors, no assembly halls, no areas to retreat from the large numbers of other people and no library, study areas or computer rooms reflected the implication of the inferiority of blacks. The contrast between black schools and formerly white schools in our study was highlighted by affluent black parents sending their children to formerly white schools. Though the formerly white schools with their mix of white, black and Indian students can be read as exemplars of post-apartheid integration, they are, when set in relation to the much more poorly resourced black schools, elitist institutions which reinforce assumptions about white superiority and black inferiority. |
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| Keywords |
This Item is associated with the Following
Keywords: Understanding Human Sexuality Seminar Series. |
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