The Gift of a Scholarship: The reflective accounts of scholarship recipients attending elite secondary schools in post-apartheid South Africa

Wallace, Jennifer

The Gift of a Scholarship: The reflective accounts of scholarship recipients attending elite secondary schools in post-apartheid South Africa

Doctoral Thesis

2020

Abstract

This study investigates the experiences of scholarship students from historically disadvantaged communities who attend elite secondary schools in South Africa. Specifically, the study analyses the narrated accounts of a sample of former scholarship recipients who reflect back on their experiences of entering into, and engaging with, the field of elite schooling, having come from very different primary school contexts. Viewing the scholarship as a form of a ‘gift' (following Mauss, 1969), and using a Bourdieusian framework and the concepts of habitus, field and capital as well as symbolic violence, the study investigates the dynamic and intricate interplay between the recipient of the scholarship on the one hand, and the elite schooling environment on the other. In-depth, one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 male and female scholarship recipients between the ages of 19 and 24 years. The focus of the interviews was on the participants' reflective experiences as scholarship recipients in elite South African schools. From the analysis of the narrative interview transcripts three main themes were explored: the interviewees' initial experiences of the elite school space; the adjustments that they felt were required of them in order to fit in and the strategies they employed to improve their positions within the field; and what their reflective accounts reveal regarding the impact of their secondary schooling experiences on their lives. This thesis makes several key contributions to academic debates on schooling in the postapartheid South African context. It shows that in this profoundly unequal setting, success in one part of the field does not necessarily equate to success in another. Moreover, any assumption that access to elite schooling through the awarding of a scholarship equates to ‘equal access' is refuted by the recipients' narratives of their experiences. In addition, the accounts of the participants in the study reveal that accepting the gift of a scholarship is far more complex, multi-layered, and at times harsh and even painful for the individual recipients than is possibly realised by those involved in this practice. Thus, as is seen from the scholarship students' accounts, the giving of a scholarship as an opportunity for upward social mobility impacts on the recipient in fundamental and unanticipated ways.

Keywords

Education

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Collections

PhD / Doctoral

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