Language and Institutional Identity in the Post-Apartheid South African Higher Education

This book examines the intersections between education, identity formation, and language in post-apartheid South Africa with specific attention to higher education. It does so against the backdrop of the core argument that the sector plays a critical role in shaping, (re)producing and perpetuating sectoral, class, sub-national and national identities, which in turn, in the peculiar South African setting, are almost invariably analogous with the historical fault lines determined and dictated by language as a marker of ethnic and racial identity. The chapters in the book grapple with the nuances related to these intersections in the understanding that higher education language policies overt and/or covert largely structure institutional cultures, or what has been described as curriculum in higher education institutions. Together, the chapters examine the roles played by higher education, by language policies, and by the intersections of these policies and ethnolinguistic identities in either constructing and perpetuating, or deconstructing ethnolinguistic identities upon which the sector was founded. The introductory chapter lays out the background to the entire book with an emphasis on the policy and practice perspectives on the intersections. The middle chapters describe the so-called White Universities, Black Universities and Middle-Man Minorities Universities. The final chapter maps out future directions of the discourses on language and identity formation in South Africa's higher education.

Examines the roles played by higher education, language policies and ethnolinguistic identities in South Africa Covers the breadth of the tragic historical racial classifications of universities in South Africa Offers insights on how language and identity formation can serve to (re)imagine higher education in South Africa

Inhalt

1. Introduction: language, identity and African universities.- 2. Institutional language policy and identity construction at a former Afrikaans medium university.- 3. Identity and Linguistic Culture at the University of Limpopo.- 4. From 'Black' to 'Kaleidoscope': Institutional Curriculum and Linguistic reforms at a historically Black University.- 5. The carry over effects of teacher education programmes on monolingualism: Towards a decolonized university.- 6. IsiZulu as the Medium of Instruction in a South African University: Implications for institutional identity shift.- 7. You dare not bring the 'what you calls : Marginalization of Indigenous Languages in Higher Education.- 8. From fixity to fluidity: A critique of Higher Education Language Policy.- 9. To be and to know: Towards decolonized multilingual university.