In search of historical consciousness: An investigation into young South Africans’ knowledge and understanding of ‘their’ national histories

ThisstudyreportsthefindingsofaninvestigationintoyoungSouthAfricans’knowledgeand understandingoftheirnationalpastderivedfromnarrativeaccountsofSouthAfricanhistorywrittenby27universitystudentswhohadrecentlycompletedthenationalschoolhistorycurriculum.AnalysisofthesenarrativesindicatestwofundamentaldifferencesinthewaythehistoryofSouthAfricaistold,intermsof emphasis (therelativeweightassignedtodifferent periodsandpeople)andof agency (who‘did’andwhowas‘doneto’).Thesedifferences pointtothecontinuedimportanceofracialidentityasafactorintheformationofanationalhistoricalconsciousnessinpost-apartheidSouthAfrica.ThehighlyselectiveemplotmentofSouthAfrica’spastbythestudentshighlightstheimportanceofsocioculturalfactorsinthedevelopmentofyoungpeople’shistoricalconsciousness,aconclusionthathasimplicationsforclassroompedagogy.Thesefindingssuggestthatunlessthehistoricalunderstandingwithwhichstudentscometotheclassroomisengagedandiscomplicatedthroughevidence-basedhistoricalenquirythenneitherthe‘disciplinary’nor‘socialjustice’aimsoftheintendedcurriculumwillberealized.

The initial response to this call for volunteers was very poor, with only six students attendingthesessions,probablyaresultofthesessions'timingneartheendofthesemester, when students were busy completing assessment tasks. As a result, I decided to make the taskavailable tostudentsonlineviatheuniversity'sintranet.Asitewascreatedtowhichall studentsregisteredforthetwocompulsoryfirst-year,first-semestercourseswereaddedas participants,andthetaskwasthenmadeavailableasatimedonlineassignment.Studentswere again invited to participate in the research and to complete the same task online at a time of their convenience within a three-week period; they received regular email reminders to encourage participation. Having students submit online made the process of textual analysis easier, and allowed all submissions to be screened for plagiarism via an internet-based antiplagiarismapplication,'Turnitin'(nonewasdetected).Intotal,33studentscompletedthetask online,but10responseswereunusableforthepurposesofthisstudy:theseeitheromitted biographicaldetailorthenarrativeaccount,orcamefromstudentswhohadcompletedtheir schoolingoutsideSouthAfricaorwhohadnotstudiedhistoryatschooltoGrade12.
What emerged from this largely inductive process were clear patterns, where the overwhelmingfault-lineforsimilarityanddifferencewas'race'.

London Review of Education 161
The varying temporal range of the narratives is also reflected in where the emphasis is placed within this range. In general students seem to recall very little South African history learnedbeforeGrade10,thepointatwhichhistorybecomesanelectivesubject.Theirstories of South Africa are pegged with 'mid-range', largely political events (Wertsch, 2006). Again mirroringthevarianceinchoiceofstartandendpoint,thespecificnarrativeofthenationwas elaborateddifferentlybydifferentstudents.InTable2,thetopfivedatesandeventscitedhave beentabulatedbyrace.Forexample,sevenoftheninecolouredstudentsmentionedtheSouth AfricanWarintheirnarratives,whereasthiseventwasnotmentionedinsignificantproportions byeitherblackorwhitestudents.
Similarly,studentsrarelyincludedthespecificdatesofevents,eventhosethataredetailed inthecurriculumdocuments. Two additional dates outside the curriculum were mentioned in more than two narratives: ten students included 1652 (the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck at the Cape and the date from whichEuropeancolonizationisconventionallydated);andfivestudentsmentioned1960(the SharpevilleMassacre).
Overall, despite their similarities in terms of class and education, the differences in the narrativehistoriesofSouthAfricatoldbythethreegroupsaremorestrikingthanaretheir similarities.Similaritiesare,tobesure,evidencedinthesharedschematicnarrativetemplate, the construction of their histories around the same substantive concepts -'colonialism', 'segregation/apartheid','democracy'-andabiasagainstindividualmenorwomen,'great'and 'small',infavourofhistoricalactorsessentializedbyethnicityandrace.Thedifferences,however, are sufficiently substantial to suggest at least three separate national historical narratives of South Africa. In the black narrative, history is imminent, and agency is ascendant and stands inastronglypolarizedrelationshipwithawhitepresence.Thecolourednarrativehasnoown agencybutshowsastrongtwentieth-centuryemphasisthatextendsbeyond1994torestitution forthewrongsofapartheid(throughtheTRC).Lastly,thewhitenarrativeischaracterizedbya markeddistancingofthepastandastrongsenseofownagencytotheexclusionofallothers. Thesefindingsraiseinterestingquestionsforfutureresearch.
Researchintohowpeoplelearnhasshownthatlearnerscometoourhistoryclassrooms not as empty vessels but with preconceptions and understandings. If not engaged, then they may appropriate new concepts for official purposes (a test or exam) but revert to their prior understanding once outside the school context (NRC, 2005). Such a 'double historical consciousness'hasbeenwell documentedin African-American studentsin theUnitedStates (Epstein, 2009), for whom official textbook accounts of progressively won civil liberties wereheldintensionwithanunderstandingofthepastinformedbycommunityandpersonal experience,whichtoldamorecredibleversionoftheongoingvictimizationandmarginalization ofAfrican-Americanpeople.Asimilarresistancetoadoptinganarrativeofthepastthatclashed withcommunity-basedknowledgewasfoundamongEstonianadultswhohadgrownupinthe formerSovietUnion,wheretheylearnedan'official'schoolversionoftheRussianRevolution and the 'unofficial' version at home (Wertsch, 2000). This too was the experience of black studentsschooledunderapartheid,asBlakeModisanerememberedinhis1963autobiography (notpublisheduntil1990): SouthAfricanhistorywasamusing,wesatmotionlessandlistenedattentively…Theancestral heroes of our fathers, the great chiefs which our parents told stories about, were in class described as blood-thirsty animal brutes; Shaka, the brilliant general who welded the Nguni tribulets into a unified and powerful Zulu nation, the greatest war machine in South African history,wasdescribedasapsychopath… (Modisane,1990) Theintentionofthepost-apartheidschoolhistorycurriculumwasnottoreplaceone'single story'ofSouthAfrica'spastwithanother,butrathertoteachhistoryasa'processofenquiry' (DBE,2011: 8)whereinlearnersmightbeexposedto'multi-perspectivity', whichwouldadd nuance and complexity to their historical understanding. The narrative accounts collected for this study suggest, however, that curriculum reform has delivered neither the complex disciplinary thinking nor the social justice intended by its creators and that, despite radical changestotheintendedcurriculum,youngpeople'sknowledgeofSouthAfricanhistoryremains largelyessentializedaroundracialclassifications. In2015,SouthAfrica'sMinisterofBasicEducationestablishedaTaskTeamtoinvestigate howbesttoimplementtheintroductionofhistoryasacompulsoryschoolsubject.Inexplaining themotivationforherdecision,sheexpressedtheviewthatduetothelownumbersoflearners who elected to take history after Grade 9 in a 12-year school system, school history was currently failing in its role to promote a sense of 'nationalism, patriotism and national unity' (pers.comm.).If,asHansKohnarguedbackin1944,nationalismorthenationisa'cultural identity,lodgedaboveallinconsciousness'(KohnquotedinVanaik,2016:97)thenthisstudy suggeststhatusingtheschoolhistorycurriculumasavehicleforpromotingasharednational identitymaynotbeasstraightforwardaprojectastheministerhopes.