The focus of this study is on the discourse of equality and quality in South African education as constructed in the South African White Paper on e-Education (2004). Using Postcolonial Theory as a theoretical framework for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) the study identifies four narratives in the White Paper that guide the discourse on equality and quality in South African education: the ‘digital divide’ narrative, the integration of the digital stranger narrative, the technological deterministic narrative, and the auditability and performability narrative. It is argued that these narratives, while evident in policies around the world, originate from states and international organisations in the global North. As such the narratives are insensitive to the reasons for South Africa’s inequality in education and work to reproduce systemic patterns of signification that fail to redress past and existing inequalities specific to South Africa. Rather than uncritically consuming global knowledge narratives, new critically informed (South) African narratives, conscious of global narratives and committed to social equality, need to be produced that are anchored in new ways of “seeing, thinking about and acting” (Soudien, 2011, p. 265).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:oulo.fi/oai:oulu.fi:nbnfioulu-201311151859 |
| Date | 18 November 2013 |
| Creators | Vaughan, B. (Bronwyn) |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Source Sets | University of Oulu |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, © Bronwyn Vaughan, 2013 |
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