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Managing History learning and teaching in schools of South Africa over the years has been characterised by diverse opinions regarding the causes of learner underperformance, who is to be held responsible over learner performance and possible leadership influence on History learner performance. In addressing the problem of underperformance in History from a leadership point of view, the researchers were guided by the managerial leadership and humanism learning theories. The selected qualitative methodology adopted an ethnographic design to establish hidden inferences. A sample of thirty participants comprising the provincial coordinator for History, subject advisor, principals, departmental heads, teachers and learners was obtained based on the availability of History-offering schools in the study area. Data collection was mainly through interviews and meta-analysis of documents. Both deductive and inductive reasoning was applied using ATLAS.ti version 8.4 and thematic analysis in the data analyses process. The findings suggest several managerial leadership measures ranging from policy to practice. These amongst others include the recommendation that History as part of social science should be separated in totality from Geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the South African curriculum, two of the aims of learning history are to learn the process of historical enquiry and to understand historical concepts such as the use of historical sources and examining evidence. This paper explores how a sample of seven social science South African textbooks uses historical sources to enable learners to learn the process of historical enquiry. The findings show that there were no primary sources presented in the Grade 3 - 6 textbooks, although there were many generic pictures and texts. There is an increase in the number and use of sources in the Grade 7 to Grade 9 textbooks, but issues of contextualisation and lack of provenance remain a challenge to the process of developing historical thinking. 'Pseudo sources' (a picture or text recreated to look like a primary source) and generic sources of information do not support historical thinking. The multiperspective approach, which means understanding the diverse ways of interpreting the same event, is poorly developed in the lower grade textbooks but became more evident in the Grade 9 books. Thus, specialised procedural knowledge is only introduced to learners in Grade 9, suggesting that the primary school textbooks analysed in this study are not fully supporting the aims of the official history curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on vulnerability within transformative pedagogy. Excerpts from two conversations on racism and xenophobia between a history teacher and her grade nine class in a Jewish school in Cape Town, South Africa in 2005 are analysed. The two interactions, which aimed to question and deconstruct prejudiced thinking, differed in the teacher's use of vulnerability. The need for more discussion about the potential role of vulnerability in pedagogical interactions is proposed.