Learner Poor Performance: Provoking Bourdieu's Key Concepts in Analyzing School Education in South Africa

• In Event: 32.082 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 32.082-12 - International Perspectives on Student Learning

Abstract

Annual testing in numeracy and literacy within South African public schools has revealed alarming concerns about our school education system. Several attempts have been made to understand the nature and quality of school education with commensurate interventions. Yet there has not been any marked improvement in learner attainment. This paper, therefore takes a critical view on the influences on school education to explore how school has come to be what it is.
The paper provokes Bourdieu’s notion of field, habitus and socialized norms or tendencies that guide behavior and thinking to explore and understand schooling in its lived reality.

Author

• Prevanand (Labby) Ramrathan, University of KwaZulu-Natal