Bibliography: pages 236-242. / This thesis is an exploratory endeavour to investigate 'white' and 'coloured' schooling and the relationship between this schooling and performance in Sociology at the University of Cape Town. It investigates these aspects using a number of methodologies. The first chapter reviews the South African literature on the relationship between schooling and university performance and how schooling is generally portrayed. It then proceeds to lay a theoretical basis for investigating schooling and how schooling influences performance in Sociology. The theoretical framework was significantly influenced by my empirical research. In this chapter, although the primary focus is on white and coloured schooling, some attention is also given to African schooling. The theoretical framework stresses the relative autonomy of the school and the importance of the social class origins of pupils. It illustrates that the social class composition of a school is crucial in shaping the pedagogical process and academic achievement. It shows that schools in the same educational authority can be very different primarily due to the differing class origins of their pupils. This is illuminated firstly, by reviewing the literature in this area and secondly, empirically; for example, by showing how matric results are clearly related to a school's class composition. The second chapter is a statistical investigation of the relationship between schooling and Sociology results at the University of Cape Town. It examines the Sociology results of students who have emerged from schools under the white educational authorities and compares them to the results of students who have emerged from schools under the Department of Internal Affairs educational authority. It indicates that the differences are often not statistically significant and thus that the racial structuring of the educational system does not necessarily lead to students who have emerged from the white educational authority schools being academically superior. It also investigates the relationship between matric aggregate/matric English symbols and Sociology results. It illustrates that although a relationship generally does exist there are also many individual exceptions. The third chapter is based on in-depth interviews with Sociology students, school teachers and principals. Drawing on the interview material it argues that different types of schools can be identified. Each type is dominated by a specific pedagogical process and students who attend one type are more likely to be prepared for Sociology than students who attend another type. This section thus draws on, substantiates and develops the theoretical framework outlined in chapter one and moves beyond the purely statistical approach of chapter two. The fourth chapter summarises the results of a questionnaire survey. It endeavours to assess the relationship between social class, schooling and Sociology results. It thus complements the proceeding chapters. An important finding is that a very small proportion of students who enter the Sociology Department are of working class or lower petit bourgeois origins. A second important finding is that very few students felt that they were prepared by their schooling for Sociology.

Bibliography: pages 168-180. / The concern of this study is to identify social areas among the coloured population of Greater Cape Town and to see if these are recognisable in physical space; i.e. if once social areas are recoqnised, whether the patterns of differing social status can be related to that of adjacent areas. If socio-economic status is assumed to be reflected in housing type and quality, then physical environment and interaction between adjacent areas is likely to play an important role in creating an environment that is perceived to have a particular character and status. As a result, contiguity will have great significance in the emergence of distinct socio-economic sub-areas. It is therefore essential to concentrate a study of this type on adjacent ESD's and to regard the four major concentrations of residential areas as separate entities. By dealing primarily with contiguous ESD's each forming separate residential concentrations, it carries no implication that there is no interaction between the different residential concentrations. Together they form a total system and areas of similar socio-economic status may develop in all or some of the residential concentrations.

This study examined the holiday and leisure aspirations of the new upper black middle class in East London using qualitative approach. The study investigated aspirations of the black middle class on international travels through the lens of Veblen’s (2002) conspicuous consumption theory which entails that black middle class citizens spend in order to assert their status and belongingness to the middle class. The aim of the study was to understand their holiday and leisure aspirations, what the idea is behind or what motivates their international travels, their travel experiences and class affirmations. This exploration included the challenges and frustrations such as Ebola scare, racism, issues with foreign exchange and variations from these international visits. Data was collected through interviews with upper black middle class who are based in the Buffalo City Metro Municipality in East London, Eastern Cape. Findings from this study revealed that consumption patterns of the emerging black middle class to diverge substantially from the other groups, in terms of greater signalling of social status via visible consumption and preoccupation with reducing an historical asset deficit. Various themes emerged as meanings attached to international travelling and leisure by those black middle class international travellers. These are sense of wealth, status, religion, self-esteem, sense of reward, bonding with friends and conspicuous/visible consumption.

No description available.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree oi'Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg / Abstract not clear. / AC 2018

Thesis (MTech (Public Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009 / In order to understand the phenomenon of the rising black middle class, Bruger et aI., (2004:134) concluded in their study of the black middle class that, it was the asset deficit which was evident in the African population that accounts for the difference in the consumption behaviour of the' black middle class from their counterparts in other races. Asset deficit is described as the accumulation of luxury goods that include expensive automobiles and property. When the acquisition of such assets is gained through credit, as is the case with the credit worthy middle class, the individual debt of these individuals rises as the acquisition of such assets continue. The purpose of this study was to investigate the creation and sustainability of the black middle class that anchored in political stability encourages social contentment and economic development. The findings of this process offered an opportunity for the state, banks and corporate organisations to review its policy priorities in order to make savings, investment and 'special structure' support networks a priority when dealing with sustainability matters for the black middle class. It is therefore, important that the recommendations provided in the study will sustain the black middle class, which would maintain social peace by indicating economic progress that has only now, since democracy, been available to Africans through the expansion of the black middle class. The thesis explains the challenges, which this class faces in its sustainability that will foster a deeper appreciation of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty and to economically enfranchise Africans. These had been the original objectives behind the government's programmes and initiatives.

This thesis begins with the assumption that the theory of academic dependency provides an adequate framework within which the relationship between social science communities in the North and South can be understood. Present problems of social scientists in the South have very often been attributed to this dependence and it has been concluded that academic dependence has resulted in an uncritical and imitative approach to ideas and concepts from the West (Alatas, 2000). This dependence has also resulted in the general regression among social scientists based in the South and in a marginalisation of their works within the social science community no matter how significant and original they may be. The problematic invisibility of the works of prominent South African scholars is a dimension of a wider crisis of academic dependence, if unchecked this current trend will also reinforce academic dependence. From the nature of the problems generated by academic dependence, it is obvious that there is a need for an intellectual emancipation movement. This movement may take different forms that may range from but are not limited to a commitment to endogeneity which involves among other things, knowledge production that takes South African local conditions seriously enough to be the basis for the development of distinct conceptual ideas and theories. This requires transcending the tendency to use ‘the local’ primarily as a tool for data collection and theoretical framing done from the global north. Secondly, there is a need to take the local, indigenous, ontological narratives seriously enough to serve as source codes for works of distinct epistemological value and exemplary ideas within the global project of knowledge production. Endogeneity in the context of African knowledge production should also involve an intellectual standpoint derived from a rootedness in the African conditions; a centring of African ontological discourses and experiences as the basis of intellectual work (Adesina, 2008: 135). In this study, it is suggested that the recommendations highlighted above can only succeed if scholars make an effort to actually engage with locally produced knowledge. There is therefore a need to make greater efforts to know each other’s work on Africa. This demand is not to appease individual egos but it is essential for progress in scientific work. African communities will benefit from drawing with greater catholicity from the well–spring of knowledge about Africa generated by Africans. In the South African context, transcending academic dependence in the new generation of young academics requires engagement with the work of our local scholars who have devoted their lives to knowledge production. This thesis explores the scholarship of Professor Bernard Magubane by engaging with his works on race, class and inequality by locating his works within the wider debates on race, class and inequality in South Africa. The specific contributions of Professor Magubane to the enterprise of knowledge production are identified and discussed in relation to his critique of Western social science in its application to Africa. The making of Professor Magubane’s life, his career, scholarship and biography details are analysed with the intention of showing their influence on Magubane as a Scholar. The examination of Professor Magubane’s intellectual and biographical accounts help to explain the details, contexts and implications of his theoretical paradigm shifts. This helps prove that Professor Magubane’s experiences and theoretical positions were socially and historically constituted. The research from which this thesis derives is part of an NRF-funded project, on Endogeneity and Modern Sociology in South Africa, under the direction of Professor Jimi Adesina.

No description available.

In South Africa, gentrification has a huge impact on the makeup of city spaces where it has been used as a redevelopment tool in order to restore and enhance these spaces. However, socio-economic turmoil is created when development benefits mainly the elite minority whilst marginalising the poor majority, which occurs in many instances of gentrification. In the worst cases, gentrification creates a trickle-up affect whereby the benefits of such a process are felt predominantly by the urban elite. This is evident in this study, where gentrification at the Point Precinct in Durban led to the marginalisation of residents of the Ark, a Christian-run homeless shelter that was forced to shut down as its residents no longer fitted in with the image-conscious ideals of the redeveloping area. These residents were displaced and ultimately relocated to a severely under-developed area known as Welbedacht approximately 30km away. This study aimed to explore the negative socio-economic impacts of displacement as a result of this gentrification and found that these impacts are vast, severe and long-lasting, including the social implications of isolation and exclusion coupled with the economic loss of living along the periphery. The implications of displacement are severe primarily due to the following reasons: the community’s displacement from the core to the urban periphery, the lack of social justice in the area, and the high levels of social exclusion. Furthermore, the implications of the gentrification process itself has resulted in a cycle of impoverishment in which Welbedacht has become entrenched. Due to the neo-liberal policies favoured by developers and policy makers, the urban poor are pushed out of the core and into the periphery with little support from local government, thereby resulting in the further marginalisation of a vulnerable community. Developers and policy makers should therefore strive for development that is equitable for all parties. Furthermore, facilities such as homeless shelters which provide countless services to the urban poor should not be shut down, but rather local government should strive to either redevelop such facilities or relocate them to an area that offers the same characteristics for the continued successful socio-economic development of the urban poor. / Geography / M. Sc. (Geography)

This thesis aims to make sense of Left politics in South Africa within the Tri-partite Alliance between the ANC, SACP and COSATU. The thesis focuses on developments in the Eastern Cape, between 2000 and 2008. The thesis describes the prevalent forms of Left politics in the Eastern Cape and the tendencies in the Alliance that organise this Left. The thesis also examines the historical, social and political conditions and that shape the form and content of Left politics in the province. Based on a survey of literature on what is considered the core manifestations of Left politics globally in the 20th Century Left politics is defined as the elements of the political spectrum that are concerned with the progressive resolution of involuntary disadvantage and with a goal of abolishing class society and capitalism. Although the Alliance as a whole should be seen to be on the Left on an international political spectrum, this thesis argues that the Left/Right dichotomy is useful for understanding the politics of the Alliance, as long as the second part of this definition is taken into consideration. The Alliance Left is understood as those leaders and activists within the Alliance that have the SACP and Cosatu as their operating base. It will be argued that this Left is, in its practice, largely concerned with what insiders refer to as politics of „influence‟, rather than with politics of „structural transformation‟. It is the ANC that is the leader of the Alliance and the party in government and thus it is on the terrain of ANC strategy, policy and positions that contestation in the Alliance plays itself out. Thus, for the Left, there is strength in the idea of the Alliance. However, there are significant theoretical and political weaknesses in the Left that undermine the possibility of making good use of various corporatist platforms to pursue the agenda of the Left in the Eastern Cape. There is also increased contestation within the Alliance Left itself about the continued usefulness of this strategy.