A Cultural-Historical Approach Towards Pedagogical Transitions: Transitions in Post-Apartheid South Africa

It may be thirty years since the first multiracial democratic elections signalled an end to Apartheid in South Africa in April 1994 but, argues Joanne Hardman in this interesting volume, the effects – both economic and social – remain clearly visible, not least in the country’s schooling system. Whilst its children might no longer be racially segregated, Hardman points out that the years of deliberately under-funding the education of non-‘white’ children and of imposing a hierarchical curriculum that sought to infer legitimacy to the apartheid regime are not easily undone. Thus, while the curriculum has been significantly altered, schools still have to address the enormous issues created by ‘both the legacy of a uniquely unfair distribution of wealth and knowledge production under apartheid and a curriculum that many still consider insufficiently inclusive and free from colonialist influence’ (7).

Hardman’s contribution to the situation is to offer a pedagogical approach that, she suggests, could allow children in South Africa to access education in a transformative manner, by facilitating the construction of meaningful knowledge and enabling development and subsequent attainment. In this way, education becomes an issue of social justice; it means little that more children are able to attend school if they are not being equipped with the skills needed for a successful future. Such a viewpoint is timely, coming as it does in the wake of the #RhodesMustFall student protests of 2015 (Chaudhury, 2016), calling for decolonised education not just in universities but across the school system – and the globe – as a whole.

However, despite many institutions stating their commitment to decolonised curricula, Hardman points out that recent debates have ‘yet to produce a coherent pedagogy that can decolonialise education’ (1). Her suggestion is that we look to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky as a potential decolonial pedagogue, by adopting the ideas around inclusive pedagogies through dialogic interaction found in his work. Hardman does acknowledge that it may seem counterintuitive to look to the past for a pedagogy to address current inequalities, but over the course of the book she builds a convincing case, arguing that pedagogy in a time of transition requires a theoretical framework and that Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory promotes a less individualistic focus on children’s cognitive development within society (8). Thus, rather than a novel pedagogy, Hardman suggests that what is needed is the collaborative social space of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development; a space where, through dialogue, meaning can be co-created in the classroom and where teachers and students can journey together to new understandings of culturally embedded concepts.

The book is divided into three sections, following a brief introductory chapter. Part 1 sets the contexts for the book, beginning with an explanation of Vygotsky’s work before moving on to two chapters specific to the South African context: curriculum transitions 1994–2019, and pedagogical transitions over the same period. These chapters suggest that, in line with the way that curricula have changed during this time, pedagogical practices have become more outcomes-based, with a shift from a transmission mode of pedagogy to one of acquisition. These changes mean that a more dialectal interaction between classroom participants (both peers and teachers) is needed if cognition is to develop. Hardman is particularly interested in the opportunities afforded by Vygotsky’s concepts of ‘obuchenie’ (‘something akin to teaching/learning; that is, one coin with two sides’ (8) and ‘perezhivanie’ – ‘a cultural historical concept Vygotsky uses to indicate that emotion and thinking are unified’ (9). Thus, Hardman argues, this joining of emotion and thinking in the teaching/learning space is particularly apt for the South African context as it ‘echoes the decolonial sentiment that academic knowledge cannot be separated from emotions’ (9).

Part 2 develops the focus on cultural historical approaches to pedagogy by offering two chapters examining how the theoretical perspectives already outlined might look in different contexts. Chapter 5 looks at how different curricula require different pedagogical approaches, with a particular focus on mathematics and science, an area in which South Africa currently underperforms against international benchmarks (77). After the rather dense theory of the opening section, these two chapters, based on empirical studies, are very helpful in illustrating Hardman’s argument; Chapter 5, for example, takes Vygotsky’s concept of semiotic mediation to consider how language in the classroom has a cognitive impact on a child, and asks whether set textbooks make scientific concepts accessible to the students. Having concluded that they do not, Chapter 6 then outlines how Hedegaard’s (1998) ‘double-move’ theory might be used to recontextualise Vygotsky’s notion that if children are to develop cognitively to the point of being able to link abstract concepts with the everyday for themselves, this needs to be reflected in a pedagogical shift away from relying on textbooks and supplementary teacher knowledge. These two chapters are rich with extracts from empirical data and offer a fascinating glimpse into classroom practice in particular contexts.

Finally, the book closes with three chapters illustrating how pedagogies of inclusion might be enacted within the modern classroom, with two chapters examining the use of technology as a pedagogical tool in a grade six mathematics classroom. The transition from a face-to-face to a computer-based pedagogy is an important one, particularly in addressing disadvantage in the poorer, rural areas that have not previously had access to such technology. The empirical data reported here – from three separate schools – reinforce that technology is at its best when used to facilitate exploratory talk and dialogic interaction; in other words, ICT only impacts on learning when part of a meaningful pedagogy. The final chapter of the volume pulls everything together, and reiterates its core argument: that a truly decolonised pedagogy must allow for the voices of marginalised others to be heard in the co-construction of meaning and knowledge. Hardman is a knowledgeable and articulate guide, and whilst this volume makes for complex reading at times, her persuasive contribution to debates around pedagogy, inequality and decolonisation is both timely and valuable.