In this article we report and reflect on a study about the problems encountered in the implementation of adult education policies in the Limpopo province of South Africa. We used the model of intergovernmental policy implementation of Van Horn and Van Meter as a theoretical framework. We reflect on this study and link the findings with more recent…

In November 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white novelist from Texas, struck up a conversation with a black shoeshine man near the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. The two men were acutely aware of the chasm that separated races in the Jim Crow South, but their relationship would soon change. Griffin, who wanted to obtain a deeper…

This article represents a South African contribution to the growing international body of knowledge on histories of community psychology. We trace the early antecedents of social-community psychology interventions and describe the social forces and academic influences that provided the impetus for the emergence and development of community…

Given the prevalence of racial segregation in the U.S., college is an opportunity to prepare students for diversity through cross-racial interaction. Hip-hop, a culture steeped in black and Latino experiences, has significant white supporters. Through diversity and critical whiteness frameworks, this research considers how white hip-hop collegians…

This policy brief provides a review of the social science evidence on the housing-school nexus, highlighting the problem of reoccurring racial segregation and inequality absent strong, proactive federal or state integration policies. Three areas of research are covered: (a) the nature of the housing-school nexus; (b) the impact of school…

This book explores a profoundly negative narrative about legally segregated schools in the United States being "inherently inferior" compared to their white counterparts. However, there are overwhelmingly positive counter-memories of these schools as "good and valued" among former students, teachers, and community members.…

Background: In 1954, the "Brown v. Board of Education" case involved four states and their school segregation laws and policies. During that period, de jure and de facto segregation were a way of life in America. Sixty years later, as most schools across the country have resegregated, the authors ask the question of whether we should be…

In this study we examine trends in segregation by race and ethnicity in higher education from 1985 to 2013. We have three key findings. Over the past 30 years, students from different groups have attended college at increasingly similar rates; gaps are decreasing. But these decreases have been driven largely by large increases in minority student…

This study attempted to determine whether students participating in a summer camp learn more about a fifth grade history concept of social studies, the Reconstruction Era, via a theater arts production. Data collected for this qualitative study included pre- and post-test drawings, scripted comments, student interviews, teacher interviews, daily…

University of Arizona's Marta Civil has been studying the complexities of bridging in-school and out-of-school mathematics for some time, during which she has raised specific questions related to connecting in-school and out-of-school mathematics (Civil, 2002, 2007, 2014). These questions have to do with "What is mathematics?"…

The transformation of South Africa from a deeply iniquitous apartheid regime to a more inclusive democratic dispensation remains a huge challenge for all South Africans and its social institutions. The university remains one institution that is under severe pressure to transform. This pressure is exacerbated by the deeply entrenched apartheid…

Drawing on data from a historical-ethnographic study of the cultural politics of school desegregation in Seattle, USA, the author explores suffering as a recurring theme in the narratives of four black leaders, educators and activists involved in the struggle for black educational opportunity in that city during the post-Civil Rights Era. As these…

Assessment of the legacy of apartheid at the end of the apartheid era in South Africa highlighted major inequalities between white and black, urban and rural areas, and several departments of education. Eighteen years into democracy, the country needs to distinguish between the initiatives taken by the government to address the apartheid legacy,…

Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

This paper brings a sociology of knowledge lens to the practice of school history. It is set against a backdrop of curriculum reform in post-apartheid South Africa, which has embraced a competence curriculum with a strong focus on the generic skills (outcomes) that learners should develop at school. This study argues that history as a discipline…