Playing the field: the responses of elite, girls-only secondary schools to the shifting landscape of an increasingly globalised, post-apartheid South Africa
Master Thesis
2014
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University of Cape Town
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This study investigates the responses of elite, girls-only secondary schools in Cape Town to the shifting landscape of an increasingly globalised, post-apartheid South Africa, from the perspective of their principals. It sketches the shifts due to neoliberal globalisation and the socio-political changes of the post-apartheid dispensation, and argues that South African schools face the enormously complex task of navigating the impact of these forces from these two, often contradictory, fields on a daily basis. The study draws extensively upon Pierre Bourdieu's notions of habitus, field and capital for the analysis of the qualitative research data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The dissertation firstly examines what the field looks and feels like for the six elite schools included in this study from the perspectives of their principals, with a specific focus on the impact of the dual forces identified above as experienced by these schools. Because of the particular position that these privileged, well-resourced schools occupy within the field, they are potentially well-placed to play the field in powerful ways, and thus possibly influence the field in their own right, as well as produce students with the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital to be effective future players in this increasingly globalised, post-apartheid world. This concept of being effective players (for both schools and individuals) draws upon Bourdieu's analogy of the field as a game. If the field, as a structural social space, is compared to a game, those who embody the habitus of the field and posses the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital for that field are best placed to be effective players. They possess, as it were, a seemingly instinctive 'feel for the game' (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 62). This study examines the nature of the habitus of the schools in this study and the advantages that those who enter these schools already possessing this habitus have by being able to embody the regularities of the game. From an analysis of the research data it is clear that the primary concern of all of the interviewees is their students. Collectively the principals viewed many aspects of the changes upon the field as presenting exciting opportunities for their students. These opportunities included the formation of new types of networks as a form of social capital, as well as the ability both to imagine and experience a world beyond South Africa's borders as a result of the ascendancy in technology and the emergence of the knowledge economy. However, there are clear pressures on both schools and students that need to be carefully managed and contained. The common themes that emerged were: market-related issues of financial sustainability;; various challenges presented by the number and nature of the curricula implemented since 1994;; heightened parental expectations;; a general disintegration of the traditional, stabilising role played by families;; and a significant rise in stress levels amongst teenagers, resulting in an increase in phenomena such as cyber-bullying and teenage depression. This study found that the common strategies adopted by these schools to equip their students with the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital to maximise the opportunities and manage these and other pressures included: having high expectations of students;; the instilling of a strong work ethic;; the development of inter- and intra-personal social skills;; an emphasis on the growth of leaders and leadership skills;; a focus on traditional values in a changing world;; and the encouragement of 'giving back' to society by means of involvement in community partnerships. There was also strong agreement that the girls-only feature of these schools could work to the benefit of their students in terms of instilling capital. These, then, are the ways in which these elite schools are 'playing the field'.
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Wallace, J. 2014. Playing the field: the responses of elite, girls-only secondary schools to the shifting landscape of an increasingly globalised, post-apartheid South Africa. University of Cape Town.