South Africa's transition to democracy has seen massive changes in the
field of teacher education aimed at integrating its previously raced and
gendered character. This book provides a comprehensive historical
overview and relational understanding of the patterns of teacher
preparation supporting South Africa's unequal formal education system.
It shows how emerging patterns, policies and pedagogies were deeply
entangled with the country's position within a broader international and
colonial order as well as with dominant national political and economic
social frameworks. Using rich archival and oral evidence, this book
illuminates how successive policies restricted and enabled access to
different institutions, while differentiated curricula prepared teachers
to teach students intended to play different roles in a society marked
by class, race and gender division. It explores the location and control
of teacher provision for black and white teachers provided by mission
societies and the state in colleges and universities. Post-apartheid
governments sought to reverse entrenched racial legacies in education
through closure of the colleges and incorporation of teacher preparation
into universities, altered admission criteria and new curricula. These
have resulted in new tensions which have arisen in relation to a world
of competing pressures on universities and teachers. By shedding new
light on these tensions from a historical perspective, this book will
prove an invaluable resource for education leaders and researchers in
the field of global and comparative education.
