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This article will examine the paradox of post-apartheid education policies which established the formal basis for social justice and equity through legislation while in reality these laudable goals remain unattainable and elusive.The article will be informed by and build on the conceptualisation and analysis of the barriers to social justice and equality in education by global and local critical, postcolonial and political economy of education scholars. It will critically outline the key arguments and studies around these concepts and will show the strengths and limitations of their analyses.Conceptual coherence will be achieved through a theoretical framework which focuses on social class, community and critical education policy. An original contribution will be made by extending and adapting some of these views, beyond their initial application, to support the education initiatives of South African social movements in poor communities. In concert with the latter, local education policy analyses will be critiqued for not paying sufficient attention to issues of social class, context and community voices in education.https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.83.1.2332

In his address at the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Foundation for Human Rights in Pretoria, 29 November 2006 Neville Alexander posed the following question:
Why is it that in spite of a constitution that was arrived at in a 20th century model of democratic bargaining and consensus building and in which are enshrined some of the noblest sentiments and insights concerning human rights, we are living in a situation where very few of those rights appear to be realised, or even realisable, in practice?

This paper attempts to answer this question through an analysis of the struggle to attain education rights in South Africa. This exercise it is hoped, will also allow us to further unravel the class nature of the South African state, the political economy of the transition (for extensive and excellent analysis of the latter see Marais, 1998; Bond, 2000 and Alexander, 2002) and the importance of the oppositional role of the new and independent social movements.

The author explores schooling system and educational situation, poverty and inequality, growing challenge to public education by private education, how market forces are being strengthened, criticisms levelled by the Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, and others at the SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers' Union) and other organisations for being "ultraleft" among other issues. (DÜI-Sen)

"How do educators and activists in today's struggles for change use historical materials from earlier periods of organizing for political education? How do they create and engage with independent and often informal archives and debates? How do they ultimately connect this historical knowledge with contemporary struggles? Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements aims to advance the understanding of relationships between learning, knowledge production, history and social change. In four sections, this unique collection explores: Engagement with activist/movement archives; Learning and teaching militant histories; Lessons from liberatory and anti-imperialist struggles; Learning from student, youth and education struggles'six chapters foreground insights from the breadth and diversity of South Africa's rich progressive social movements; while others explore connections between ideas and practices of historical and contemporary struggles in other parts of the world including Argentina, Iran, Britain, Palestine, and the US. Besides its great relevance to scholars and students of Education, Sociology, and History, this innovative title will be of particular interest to adult educators, labour educators, archivists, community workers and others concerned with education for social change."--Provided by publisher.

Education, economy and society is a compelling and comprehensive antidote to the misconstrued nature of the relationship between education and society. It provides a constructive critique of conventional discourses but also alternative approaches to understand the connections between education and the triple scourge of unemployment, inequality and poverty. Against a tendency to reduce the skills discourse to narrow economic ends, the contributors passionately argue that education finds its value and purpose in a focus on social justice, transformation and democratic citizenship. The joy of education is to capture human imaginations and unleash their creativity towards a more humane and compassionate society. Here is a rich resource for educators, policy developers, trade unionists, and trainers to explore possibilities for a new pedagogy in post-school education and training through empirical research on skills, technology and issues of employment on the shop floor, critical analysis of the youth wage subsidy and workers' education. The book will appeal to a wide audience including students and academics in the fields of industrial sociology; economics; adult education; further education and training; and those in youth development.

In South Africa, more than most countries, the meaning of citizenship and related rights has faced severe contestation centred on categories such as race, class and nation. Close to two decades after the first democratic elections, notions of citizenship in South Africa represent a complex dynamic involving a combination of one or another of these social constructs, as they relate at different times to changing social, political and economic imperatives. In this article we explain that analyses of citizenship education in South Africa have traversed different phases over the last two decades and discuss some of the research on how ideas and values around citizenship are translated into classroom practice. We then examine notions about citizenship and social justice in the shadow of the xenophobic or Afrophobic attacks of 2008/2009 and in the light of the present rise in racial tensions within and across communities in South Africa. Our conclusion highlights the paradox that, despite the normative framework of the Constitution, policies and the curriculum, structural inequalities in society will continue to thwart attempts at social cohesion.