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The article offers detailed reflections of two lecturers on the teaching of Social Sciences Education Honours modules in a multidisciplinary context at one university in South Africa. The reflections portray that, while in Social Sciences Education students from diverse specialisations are enrolled in courses that are multidisciplinary in nature, the teaching pedagogy used continues to be disciplinary-based. Through the qualitative self-reflective narrative study of two lecturers teaching Commerce Education and History Education in the Honours programme in this university, the paper explores how these lecturers teach these Honours modules in a multidisciplinary context. Drawing on the reflections of the two lecturers, the conclusions of the study were that, the Honours programme in Social Sciences Education needs to be an integrated and multidisciplinary study, given the pedagogical weaknesses, and the resultant compromising of the quality of the teaching of the disciplines within this programme. The paper proposes 'border crossing pedagogy' as a solution that can be used in a multidisciplinary classroom because it allows for integration of disciplines in terms of content and teaching approach. This calls for revisiting how the modules within Social Sciences Honours programme are taught in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today’s learners are born into a multimedia world and feel quite comfortable in an electronic learning environment. The high-quality sound, realistic colour images, graphics, narrations, real-time recordings and full motion videos from multimedia, which are integrated in History lessons, are what the learners of today want and need in their learning. In the study on which this article is based, efforts were made to determine the extent to which Intermediate Phase History teachers (Grade 4-6) of schools in the townships and rural areas in and around the Klerksdorp, Rustenburg and Vryburg districts of the North West Province of South Africa were willing to utilise multimedia in their History (Social Science) lessons. The challenges these History teachers experienced when they were faced with the application of multimedia in their lessons are also highlighted. In the last part of the article recommendations are made to serve as future suggestions for History teachers to apply multimedia in the teaching of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article anticipates the 50th Anniversary of Politikon, by suggesting themes that will need to be included in a comprehensive history of the development of the field in South Africa. It draws on Intellectual History, the Sociology of Knowledge and Institutional History to locate the development of the academic study of politics in South Africa and points to several proto-types of the discipline. Two major ‘conventions’ of Political Science are identified – one British and the other American. These traditions as well as the contributions of several political scientists are briefly discussed. The conclusion points to lacunae in the field, especially understandings of Africa and on the issue of voice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the experiences of several learners in KwaZulu-Natal schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, focusing on the teaching and studying of various reportedly controversial historical issues in schools. It states that history was taught according to a positivist model during South Africa's Apartheid period. South Africa's National Curriculum Statement plan from 1994 is mentioned, along with educational philosophies and the roles that history teachers play in South Africa.

Theoretical and methodological matters pertaining to school textbook analysis are an under-researched and under-documented area of specialisation. In this article I attempt to contribute to this field by reflecting on my own experience of grappling with these issues as relevant to the study of a number of South African school history textbooks. The topic of investigation is that of race and racism. I use this as a vehicle for operationalising the theoretical and methodological issues at hand. A key issue is whether historians and other 'scientists' make the methods of their disciplinary discoveries explicit or not, and the implications this could have for developing historical understanding. In the second part of the article, I explain the theoretical position I assume towards the object of my study. It is a hermeneutic realist stance; a stance that attempts to use the researcher's (own) particular historically and culturally conditioned mindset in the interpretive process. In some cases, this led to an interpretation of the messages communicated in the textbook as flat and sterile, reinforcing stereotypes, while in others the reader is drawn into a discourse that tends to appeal to his or her humanity rather than judgement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the history lessons produced by the History Workshop that were published in the Learning Nation section of The New Nation newspaper between 1986 and 1990. Specifically, I examine the rhetorical dimensions of these historical narratives, which not only provided readers with factual information about the past, but also offered black South Africans a new framework, a new 'conception of reality', to that provided within the Department of Education and Training (DET) schools of the apartheid era. This new framework provided by these historical narratives was significant for two reasons. First, it offered black South Africans alternative ways of understanding and analysing conditions in apartheid South Africa. Second, by examining the heroic acts of resistance by everyday people and prominent leaders in the past, these narratives also sought to provide inspiration and encourage continued acts of resistance during a very violent and fraught period in the anti-apartheid struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an overview of the chequered nature of history education in Lesotho primary schools. It highlights the nineteenth century missionary-led, humble beginnings and goals of formal education, which did not change much during almost a century of British colonial rule. The thrust of the study is that Lesotho primary schools currently teach history as a concentrated component of Social Studies at Standard 6, which is illustrated with a few examples and a brief analysis of learners' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role might Holocaust education play in post-apartheid South Africa? What role might the teacher of the Holocaust play? This paper examines the considerations that have shaped the programmes developed by the South African Holocaust Foundation to support South African teachers teaching about the Holocaust. This programme is set against a society removed in time and space from the history of the Holocaust, but in which teachers, like other members of this society, have recently emerged from a traumatic past. Informed by the experience of working with history teachers from diverse communities across rural and urban areas of South Africa, this paper argues that, if teachers are to be active players in the process of social transformation, teacher training has to go beyond supporting the content knowledge and methodological skills of teachers. Training programmes have to facilitate not only the development of an understanding by teachers of what is meant by human rights, but more importantly, facilitate the process by which teachers can come to value human rights, and not see them as an obstacle in their path to teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presented is an interview with Prabashini Moodley, a South African author of Indian heritage. In the interview Moodley addresses a number of issues including the history curriculum in South African schools, the nature of her writing process and the position on South Africans of Indian descent in South African history.

Bridging the somewhat arbitrary divide between history and archaeology remains a critical aim of the study of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the South African interior. Despite the prejudice inherent in the oral records collected by state ethnologist P.L. Breutz and others, it is argued that they still play a fundamental role in ascribing a historical identity to the countless Late Iron Age stone-walled sites that have been attributed to Tswana speakers. The focus of this study is on the settlement sequence of a Tlokwa branch along the Kgetleng (Elands) River in the Rustenburg region of present-day North West Province. More specifically, it examines the evidence that identifies the stone ruins on Vlakfontein and adjoining farms as Marothodi, the capital of the Rustenburg Tlokwa, prior to their dispersal during the difaqane. Though it was renowned for its copper industry and constituted one of the largest African towns in the interior prior to the difaqane, Marothodi has largely faded from historical memory. This article explores the historical roots of the Tlokwa, their settlement history at Marothodi, and their interaction with near neighbours, such as the Fokeng, the Tlhako and the Kgatla. It highlights the potential contribution of an integrated historical and archaeological study of late precolonial Tswana society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching urban history in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching the history of unfree labor in Africa and the Indian Ocean in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching gendered history in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers, Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching the history of land and environment in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers, Topics discussed.

Presents a recap on the panel of discussion on the role of University of Cape Town in writing and teaching history in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching race and ethnicity in South African history in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.

Examines developments in film and history studies in South Africa. Overview of case studies including the representation of the holocaust and of apartheid on screen and the long-history of the war-film genre; Emphasis on the reception of cinema in colonial Zimbabwe; Factors influencing African cinematic tastes; African responses to cinema.

Discusses claims made for the social power of academic history in South Africa. Reasons for the decline in history's status as a school subject; History's potential ability to influence actions and events; Functions of historical consciousness; Ordering of the past so as to attribute continuity to life; Representation of the past in a way that is meaningful to the present.

Focuses on a school curriculum in South African known as 'Curriculum 2005.' Argument of the curriculum's possible detrimental effect on the teaching of history; Contradictory impulses of the curriculum; Understanding of why history offers challenges to certain vested interests; Paradoxical defense of the content of history.

Discusses South African academic historians' perceptions of the changing nature of history, both in society generally and on university campuses. Effects of deep-seated political, economic and cultural shifts that have national and international dimensions; Politics of history in South Africa in the 1990s.

The new democratic dispensation in South Africa since 1994 has necessitated the development of a new approach to history as a school subject in the framework of the recently inaugurated Curriculum 2005. The new education authorities regard history as one of the keys to a new social and political dispensation, especially in view of its abuse during the apartheid era. This article briefly covers history curriculum development during the pre-1994 apartheid era, and also the various efforts since 1994 to ensure the development and future of a history curriculum suitable for the new democracy in South Africa. Two problem areas are discussed, viz, the role of the Government in these efforts and the constraints of integrating history into the Curriculum 2005 learning program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the implications of Curriculum 2005 for teaching history in South African schools according to the South African Historical Society. Nature of Curriculum 2005; Areas in which Curriculum 2005 did not benefit the teaching of history; Value of history as a discipline; Strategy for teaching history in grades 10-12; Role of history professors.

Argues for the need to review filmic representations of South Africa's past in the study of the country's history. Example of the use of motion pictures in the study of history in the United States; Visual history.

The article focuses on the study of history and social anthropology in South Africa. Most professional historians assumed that the study of Africans belonged to the discipline of anthropology because African societies had been changeless and no evidence existed to allow historians to recover the history of African lives. Author David Hammond-Tooke suggested for historians to draw on ethnographic studies and modern anthropological models, which could help scholars to understand the processes of the past.

Presents a conference session on reflections on writing and teaching history in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching the history of health, disease and medicine in Africa in the twenty-first century, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers, Topics discussed.

Presents a conference session on writing and teaching national history in Africa in an era of global history, during the University of Cape Town History Department Centenary Colloquium in South Africa. Theme; Keynote speakers; Topics discussed.