Towards Culturally Responsive Schools in South Africa: Developing Guidelines for Government Developmental Contexts

My research focusses on developing educational contexts in South Africa on how to handle cultural diversity. Schools became the sites of cultural convergence where people from diverse backgrounds met for the first time, on supposedly ‘equal ground’. The issue at hand is the non-accommodation of minority groups in multicultural schools, which leads to “assimilation.” This state of affairs may resulted in minority groups perceiving that they are not being accommodated and they usually drop out of school. Most of the learners, who drop-out of school, possess the cognitive ability to complete school. Learner drop-outs may more likely be emotionally immature, less well-adjusted and manifest a defective self-concept. If learners from minority groups are accepted, this will change their overall thinking and their behaviour and attitudes and they will succeed in schools. Humans are social beings by nature and therefore possess an innate need to belong and to be accepted by others. Hence this qualitative study aims to develop guidelines that can be used by government developmental contexts to accommodate all cultures positively. Findings revealed that teachers and learners have not been adequately prepared for the complexities that inherently exist when learners from minority and majority cultures are brought together in an integrated schooling setting. It is virtually impossible for these individuals to know and understand all cultures, racial uniqueness and languages. Data collection in the form of interviews is still in progress where possible guidelines will emulate in order to assist the school communities to understand and accomodate each other.

Keywords: culturally responsive schools, developmental contexts, South Africa