What do South African students learn when we teach about race? - There is a conspicuous lack of teaching resources to address the historical construction of race in the South African context.
“Everyone is saying you shouldn’t base university entrance on the colour of your skin, they should base it on your marks,” says Amy. “People keep on saying that but then they don’t stand up for it, do you know what I mean?”
This natural science-focused approach to teaching about race is also reflected in the presentation of race in history textbooks. The Oxford University Press textbook, for example, discusses the development of hominids over about four-million years, accompanied by a picture showing the evolution of human beings. It speaks about the Cradle of Humankind in Africa and how early modern humans spread from Africa to the rest of the world.
The second challenge is when theories of evolution come head-to-head with the religious beliefs of students. Meaningful conversations about race during history lessons are easily waylaid as students attempt to reject evolutionary theories in favour of creationism. This becomes particularly challenging given that the widely used Vivlia textbook citeswhich students take as evidence of the claim that people used to be monkeys.
The last misunderstanding is perhaps the most disturbing, as students conclude that black people are less evolutionarily advanced than white people. Our sense is that this is not something which teachers are communicating, but which students are interpreting from the textbooks. For example, the textbooks say that hominids originated in Africa — and were therefore “African” — and the pictures show darker-skinned hominids evolving into lighter-skinned “modern humans”.
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