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Class and Color in South African Youth Policy: The Witwatersrand, 1886–1910
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
During the last two decades the material and ideological processes by which schooling has assisted in the formation and reproduction of classes have formed an important theme in a burgeoning historical and sociological literature on the relationship between schooling and capitalism. In South Africa these structures and processes of schooling and socialization have differed from those elsewhere in that they have contributed to the reproduction of classes that are broadly racially defined. It is usual to trace the origins of apartheid education to the introduction of Bantu education. This article will show that the introduction of a racially divided system of education, playing its part in shaping a dispossessed and exploited black working class and a privileged and racist white ruling bloc, long predates the introduction of the Bantu Education Act of 1953. It is rooted in the pattern and dynamics of the particular form of South African capital accumulation, specifically the rapid growth and expansion of the gold-mining industry after 1886.
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- Copyright © 1987 by the History of Education Society
References
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