IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i11p2640-2657.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Racial Desegregation and Schooling in South Africa: Contested Geographies of Class Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Hunter

    (Department Social Sciences/Geography, University of Toronto, Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4, Canada; and School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Abstract

Much research on racial desegregation in South Africa uses residential data to track how richer black South Africans are moving from apartheid spaces to higher income suburbs; how racial privilege is giving way to class privilege. Drawing on geographers' relational conception of space and anthropologist Sherry Ortner's notion of a ‘class project’, in this paper I show the importance of geographies of schooling to class formation. The study tracks how schools and two groups—township residents and poorer shack residents—affect and navigate access to schools in Durban. Of importance to class formation, the study finds that children of relatively poor, but not the poorest, township dwellers can commute very long distances to attend prestigious schools. Consequently, racial mixing is more evident in South Africa's schools than in its residential areas—the opposite scenario to that found in many other countries. Yet children born to very poor residents of urban informal settlements face considerable barriers when trying to access well-resourced schools: although they are legally entitled to attend prestigious schools located close to informal settlements, they can often live with extended families hundreds of miles away in rural areas. This new geography of schooling leads to the marginalization of some children but the perception of, and potential for, intergenerational class mobility among a quite significant group of black South Africans.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Hunter, 2010. "Racial Desegregation and Schooling in South Africa: Contested Geographies of Class Formation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(11), pages 2640-2657, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2640-2657
    DOI: 10.1068/a439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a439
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a439?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Servaas van der Berg, 2006. "How effective are poor schools? Poverty and educational outcomes in South Africa," Working Papers 06/2006, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    2. Ronnie Donaldson & Nico Kotze, 2006. "Residential Desegregation Dynamics In The South African City Of Polokwane (Pietersburg)," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 97(5), pages 567-582, December.
    3. Hunter, Mark, 2007. "The changing political economy of sex in South Africa: The significance of unemployment and inequalities to the scale of the AIDS pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 689-700, February.
    4. Chris Hamnett & Mark Ramsden & Tim Butler, 2007. "Social Background, Ethnicity, School Composition and Educational Attainment in East London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(7), pages 1255-1280, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gina Porter & Jeff Turner, 2019. "Meeting Young People’s Mobility and Transport Needs: Review and Prospect," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-23, November.
    2. de Kadt, Julia & van Heerden, Alastair & Richter, Linda & Alvanides, Seraphim, 2019. "Correlates of children’s travel to school in Johannesburg-Soweto—Evidence from the Birth to Twenty Plus (Bt20+) study, South Africa," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 56-67.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jocelyn Elmes & Morten Skovdal & Kundai Nhongo & Helen Ward & Catherine Campbell & Timothy B Hallett & Constance Nyamukapa & Peter J White & Simon Gregson, 2017. "A reconfiguration of the sex trade: How social and structural changes in eastern Zimbabwe left women involved in sex work and transactional sex more vulnerable," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Nicola Branson & Julia Garlick & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt, 2012. "Education and Inequality: The South African Case," SALDRU Working Papers 75, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Bhana, Deevia, 2009. ""AIDS is rape!" gender and sexuality in children's responses to HIV and AIDS," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 596-603, August.
    4. Robert Hill, 2019. "Does IEB make the grade? Alternative testing methods and Educational outcomes: The case of the IEB in South Africa," Working Papers 201904, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    5. Fabrice Murtin & Thomas Laurent & Geoff Barnard & Dean Janse van Rensburg & Vijay Reddy & George Frempong & Lolita Winnaar, 2015. "Policy Determinants of School Outcomes under Model Uncertainty: Evidence from South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(3), pages 317-334, September.
    6. William Clark & Regan Maas, 2012. "Schools, Neighborhoods and Selection: Outcomes Across Metropolitan Los Angeles," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(3), pages 339-360, June.
    7. Gabrielle Wills & Servaas van der Berg, 2018. "Measuring leadership and management and their linkages with literacy in rural and township primary schools in South Africa," Working Papers 21/2018, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    8. Dieter von Fintel & Eldridge Moses, 2017. "Migration and gender in South Africa: following bright lights and the fortunes of others?," Working Papers 09/2017, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics, revised 2018.
    9. Martin Gustafsson, 2007. "Using The Hierarchical Linear Model To Understand School Production In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(1), pages 84-98, March.
    10. Jeremy Seekings, 2014. "The Social and Political Implications of Demographic Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 652(1), pages 70-86, March.
    11. Lori Hunter & John Reid-Hresko & Thomas Dickinson, 2011. "Environmental Change, Risky Sexual Behavior, and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: Linkages Through Livelihoods in Rural Haiti," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 30(5), pages 729-750, October.
    12. Busisiwe Nkonki-Mandleni & Abiodun Olusola Omotayo & David Ikponmwosa Ighodaro & Samuel Babatunde Agbola, 2021. "Analysis of the Living Conditions at eZakheleni Informal Settlement of Durban: Implications for Community Revitalization in South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-16, February.
    13. Kaus, Wolfhard, 2013. "Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 63-73.
    14. Carol S Camlin & Victoria Hosegood & Marie-Louise Newell & Nuala McGrath & Till Bärnighausen & Rachel C Snow, 2010. "Gender, Migration and HIV in Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(7), pages 1-10, July.
    15. Haelermans, Carla & De Witte, Kristof, 2012. "The role of innovations in secondary school performance – Evidence from a conditional efficiency model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 223(2), pages 541-549.
    16. Pierre Courtioux & Tristan-Pierre Maury, 2020. "Private and public schools: A spatial analysis of social segregation in France," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(4), pages 865-882, March.
    17. Rulof Burger & Rachel Jafta, 2006. "Returns to Race: Labour Market Discrimination in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Working Papers 04/2006, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    18. Cindy Cheng & Joan Barcelo & Allison Spencer Hartnett & Robert Kubinec & Luca Messerschmidt, 2020. "CoronaNet: A Dyadic Dataset of Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 20200042, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Apr 2020.
    19. Bekhzod EGAMBERDIEV, 2021. "Household Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic From A Development Economics Perspective - A Review," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 15-30, June.
    20. Bell, Griffin J. & Ncayiyana, Jabulani & Sholomon, Ari & Goel, Varun & Zuma, Khangelani & Emch, Michael, 2022. "Race, place, and HIV: The legacies of apartheid and racist policy in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2640-2657. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.