intercultural cultural of schools: Problems and challenges for a post-apartheid South Africa, The

Journal of Negro Education, The, Fall 1997 by Van Wyk, Jerome-Alexander

In concrete terms, what this entails is first the need to assess the human resource component required for political, economic, and intercultural development; and then to develop policies that are geared toward race, class, and gender equity within and across institutions (Badat, Barends, & Wolpe, 1994).

Tensions Between Integration and Differentiation

With the demise of apartheid, the concomitant legal termination of segregated residential areas, and the opening up of South Africa's schools, there emerged a tendency among students of previously disadvantaged groups to flock to the formerly Whites-only schools. Additionally, limited numbers of non-White teachers joined the staffs at these schools. The popular perception still abounds that White schools are better equipped and better able to provide an environment that enhances learning, that their classes are smaller, and so forth.

The prevailing challenge therefore remains the level of "fitting in" or degree to which these new students and teachers can integrate into these dominant-group structures and culture. It is a matter of achieving what Vann and Kunjufu (1993) call "balance in an unbalanced education system" (p. 490)-that is, balancing the interplay of integrating functions and differentiating functions. The former entail one's willingness to establish and maintain relations with others within an institution, and to operate according that institution's codes and standards, in order to become an accepted member of it. The latter entails the development of one's own sense of self and the forging of one's special place within an institution. It entails understanding one's own idiosyncratic characteristics and reconciling these traits with those required to achieve successful interpersonal relations as well as desired occupational, gender, and status roles (Ryan, 1993). The problem, however, is that South African schools have yet to get the balance of integration and differentiation right. Quite apart from schools that are locked into previously racially reserved ghettos-a scenario that itself demands mammoth redress-the recently integrated private and previous Model C (White) schools are not scoring too well on the integration/differentiation scale. This is due to the following factors in varying degrees:

(1) the characterization of non-White racial, ethnic, and religious groups as monolithic;

(2) the high value that is placed on integration into White culture, often at the expense of celebrating difference; or worse, at the expense of cultivating each student's individuality;

(3) the neglect or scant attention paid to intercultural literacy, or to those values and belief systems that reflect other than the dominant culture with its decidedly Eurocentric notions of self, family, society, nature, religion, and the supernatural;

(4) the perception of intercultural and gender diversity policies and programs as addons or optional;

(5) incoherent and disparate policies and practices addressing multilingualism;