This paper discusses educational policies of teacher education in South Africa. The predominant theory of the Afrikaner ruling elite, Christian National Education, and its teaching style, Fundamental Pedagogics, structures schools on an authoritarian, paternalistic framework that perpetuates apartheid. Because teacher education was controlled through departments of education for each ethnic group, all of which were under the government control, the twin purposes of separation and inequality were successfully implemented from the passage of the Bantu Education Act in 1953 until the student protests that began with the Soweto uprising in 1976. As opposed to the Afrikaner universities, the English language universities began to look for ways to contribute towards changing the way initial teacher education was conducted, and towards opportunities for alternative forms of inservice teacher training (INSET). The Soweto uprising significantly accelerated the entry of private agencies into the field of INSET. Four types of nongovernmental INSET programs emerged: (1) those undertaken by universities, always with a research component; (2) those operating under the management of independent organizations set up especially for the purpose; (3) those run by bodies with wider interests for which INSET was but one activity; and (4) INSET agencies that have grown out of local community actions. The development of Peoples' Education and the action research programs developed in some of the universities are described. The most characteristic feature of the action research initiatives in the South African context has been their clear commitment to linking the political and the educational in a concerted effort to stimulate educational and social transformation. (DK)