CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSIONS
6.3 Summary of key findings
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10 South African history textbooks? This will be dealt with in the summary of the findings.
Finally, chapter five served as the second level analysis whereby the implications of the findings from the previous chapter, on post-conflict South Africa were discussed. This was done through an examination of these findings in relation to their convergence and divergence to both theoretical and research literature. Interaction with the literature produced the answers to the second research question namely: Why is heritage represented the way it is in contemporary Grade 10 South African history textbooks?
This too is dealt with in the summary of the findings in this chapter.
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10. Learners’ book placed great emphasis on the role of ‘big’ and influential individuals of the past to establish identities, Shuters history. Grade 10. Learner’s book in contrast focused on the less powerful people in society such as the Khoisan people and their role in creating and protecting identity for themselves and for the societies they lived in.
In spite of these noticeable differences, the evidence across all three textbooks shows that the focus of heritage is on symbolism and identity even though the manner of presenting these might be very different.
Therefore, in relation to the research questions for this study, this particular finding insinuates that heritage is not natural but cultural and specifically of symbolic-identity nature. This correlates with the conceptualisation of heritage adopted by the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites – Charter of Venice of 1964, that emphasised cultural heritage in the form of historic buildings and monuments (Ahmad, 2006; Vecco, 2010) (see pp. 17 and 18). Implying that, even though other organisations such as UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage held in 1972 subsequently broadened the scope of heritage to include natural heritage resources (Ahmad, 2006), the selected textbooks preferred to stick to a dated meaning and not move with the conceptual progress as it developed .
This supports the view that heritage is understood and conceptualised differently in different times and contexts with each conceptualisation having its own specific focus based on what it aims to achieve. Therefore the textbooks evoke some tension between the initial meaning of the concept heritage and its contemporary understanding with regards to conceptualisation. But the reason for this stance recorded in the textbooks seems to be linked to post-conflict ideologies. Hilker (2011) noted that one characteristic of such societies is their desire to seek a new identity by mostly identifying themselves with symbolic icons of their struggle and their history. This is achieved in the selected textbooks through a focus on symbolic-identity heritage as a form of heritage over other forms of cultural heritage and over natural heritage most especially.
Moreover, the choice of language in the textbooks also revealed the desire to present heritage as a shared and inclusive practice. This is with particular reference to the kind of pronouns used. Consequently, the analysis indicates many instances where heritage
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is conceptualised with the help of pronouns in the first person plural category, such as
‘our’, ‘we’ and ‘us’. The insinuation with such lexical choices is that heritage should be understood beyond individual and personal perspectives perhaps for the sake of post- conflict nation building. This lofty initiative is however contradicted with instances within the text where heritage is given personal or individual connotation through the kind of pronouns used. The example where indigenous knowledge systems are referred to as the heritage of traditional healers (‘their’ heritage) supports this claim. However, examples of the latter category are isolated indicating a possibility that their inclusion only confirms the tension and controversy surrounding both fields – history textbooks and heritage.
Language has always played a great role in determining the nature of heritage and in defining and supporting certain ideologies in textbooks. The semantic evolution of the concept heritage for example was largely informed by the choice of language (see Table 2.1). Whether used with the intention of conceptualising heritage or to encourage a certain ideology in a textbook, the choice of language is most often masked in what Engelbrecht (2008) refer to as ‘master symbols’. The previous chapter (pp. 132-133) highlighted some master symbols used in the textbooks. These symbols together with the choice of personal pronouns indicated in the paragraph above signal to me that the textbooks’ attempt to promote and portray inclusive and shared heritage is tenuous possibly brought about by the fact that the meaning of inclusive is still being negotiated in post-conflict South Africa.
Another key finding is the portrayal of inclusive practices notably the dominance of lexicons linked to issues of patriarchy. Seen from a gender perspective, the textbooks placed more emphasis on masculine icons than on feminine ones. Apart from the numerical superiority of representation of men over women, the quality of the representation was also analysed to reach to this conclusion. In this regard it was noted that male icons were depicted as people with power and authority as exemplified by their roles in activities such as public holidays in which individuals such as Christopher Columbus, Van Riebeeck, and Piet Retief were conspicuously cited. On the other hand, very few lexicons linking women to heritage icons were depicted in the textbooks. In the few relevant cases, the women were given roles that suggested their powerlessness
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vis-à-vis the men and other forces of society. This is for example the situation with Saartjie Baartman who is targeted as the focal point to exemplify the humiliation surrounding the display of humans. This claim is justified from another angle to show the powerful nature of men over women as the textbook producers ensured that all the men are referred to by either their names or their titles and their names. Examples include reference to President Roosevelt and to King Shaka. On the contrary in the very few instances where women are portrayed with positions of power, they are not referred to by their names but simply by their titles – example is the reference made to the Queen of Sheba. These, as well as other lexicons used in the textbooks suggest an inclination towards the apartheid and colonial societies where patriarchy was the norm rather than the exception.
The findings of this study have confirmed the view expressed in the literature of heritage as a highly controversial and contested phenomenon that is difficult to assign to a specific conceptualisation. This is evident in the differences with which the selected history textbooks for this study presented heritage both in terms of style and content.
The implication for this inability to harmonise the textbooks’ stance on heritage mean that Grade 10 learners using the different textbooks are expected to adopt these different attitudes. This is amplified by the fact that textbooks and history textbooks in particular, as with heritage, are known to be used for motives other than simply pedagogical ones. The literature reviewed in this respect revealed that history textbooks are never neutral. They always have an agenda (political, ideological or otherwise) and always promote these within certain contexts of space and time and in this particular instance it is promoting a specific ideology as seen in the findings from this study, within the context of a post-1994 or a post-conflict South African society.
This understanding of the purpose and nature of heritage and of history textbooks, to an extent facilitates our understanding of why heritage is presented in an inconsistent manner in the selected history textbooks in this study. The scenario therefore can be described as one of a complex and ideological phenomena (heritage) in a complex and ideological material (the textbook) in a complex and ideologically diverse post-conflict society. Against this back ground my thesis is presented below.
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Post-conflict societies negotiate their heritage with the result that they achieve a form of
‘new heritage’ in a ‘new country’. By extension history textbooks as powerful pedagogical, political/ideological as well as commercial products are only partially ideal for this ‘new heritage’. This specifies that textbooks as educational resources are themselves fallible in the sense that they carry the subjective ideas and opinions of their producers and as Apple and Christian-Smith (1991, p. 3) state, they are also “published within the political and economic constraints of market, resources and power” which means that any expectation that textbooks will be infallible is not realistic. It is important to note that as commercial products, these textbooks create a brand to sell with the resulting effect being that they ultimately represent heritage in a particular way, as explained in the findings of this study, whereby the concept is approached differently in terms of conceptualisation and pedagogy. In this regard, the findings reveal tension in the conceptualisation of heritage between the different books as well as the way these textbooks relate to and interpret the NCS-History. For example, while In search of history. Learner’s book. Grade 10 foregrounds a clear conceptualisation of heritage, Making history. Grade 10. Learners’ book chose not to do so. Within the latter book the meaning of heritage can only be deduced from the case studies. Shuters history. Grade 10. Learner’s book on its part foregrounds the conceptualisation of heritage but the explanation is very rudimentary to the extent that much of the understanding can only be inferred from the examples advanced in the text to explain heritage. This is also true of the choice of examples and case studies used in the different books to explain heritage. Consequently, it can be said that the different textbooks understand and interpret heritage differently from their commercial and pedagogical points of view of foregrounding the meaning of the concept and of presenting it in the case studies. This tension between the different textbooks could also be explained from the perspective of the different ways in which the textbooks relate to policy and their interpretation of it, especially the NCS-History.
The conclusion reached is that each textbook is rather unique in both its understanding of heritage and its interpretation of the NCS-History. The reason for this in my view is that heritage is a foreign and ambiguous concept within post-conflict South Africa whereby in trying to understand it a healthy tension is created. This tension is manifested in several ways including the manner in which heritage is espoused, as well
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as in the hidden curriculum – this last category involving issues of gender, race, ethnicity, geography and class as it relates to heritage and as it is represented in the textbooks. The implication here is that the difficulty in addressing the pedagogic concerns of heritage suggests that South Africa as a post-conflict society is in a state of limbo or flux in that the heritage of this country is still being negotiated and constructed with the position not yet attained, to achieve a clear heritage identity for a “new South Africa”. Contrary to what might be rashly assumed, the tension in this case is beneficial for a “new nation” that is still in the process of constructing a heritage identity. As has been identified in the findings, this process sometimes involves a combination of aspects of the old heritage ideology (pre-1994) with the new or intended one (post-1994 or post-conflict). Within this context, Bundy (2007, p. 80) proposed three discursive projects and over-arching attempts to position the nation. He submits that: “In short hand, these maybe thought of as the rainbow nation (or “unity in diversity”); as the African Renaissance (or “African hegemony in the context of a multi-cultural and non- racial society”); and as ethnic particularism (or the assertion of sub-national identities as primary).”
With reference to the above and considering the post-conflict context within which the selected textbooks were created, a partnership exists between commercial publishers and government to bring about an educational product. My conclusion in this debate is that if the concept of a rainbow nation is taken to mean “unity in diversity” then the heritage depiction in the selected textbooks shows a certain diversity but not necessarily unity. Therefore no fully-fledged all inclusive harmonious or hegemonic heritage in the context of a multi-cultural and multi-racial society was achieved by the selected textbooks. This was so because of the general and commercial nature of textbooks, different interpretations of the heritage outcome in the NCS-History by the textbook producers and the DoE and the various conceptual meanings attached to heritage as a phenomenon. Within this ambiguity a broadly agreed upon heritage in history textbooks in post-conflict South Africa is still under construction.
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