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A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school
The researcher is a social worker at a primary school in Cape Town. This school was previously reserved for white children during the apartheid era, but now provides education for a multi-racial group of children, who are predominantly of mixed race. The researcher became aware that incidents of bul...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Social Development
2014
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| _version_ | 1867613182744330240 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | West, Verusha |
| author2 | Sturgeon, Shona |
| author_browse | Sturgeon, Shona West, Verusha |
| author_facet | Sturgeon, Shona West, Verusha |
| author_sort | West, Verusha |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The researcher is a social worker at a primary school in Cape Town. This school was previously reserved for white children during the apartheid era, but now provides education for a multi-racial group of children, who are predominantly of mixed race. The researcher became aware that incidents of bullying and learner conflict in the school took on a racial flavour at times, but that there was a tendency to deny that race was a difficulty with which the children struggled. She embarked on this research in order to examine the views and experiences of these learners with regards to race and prejudice. The researcher employed a qualitative research design and made use of a number of focus groups to gather data. These groups were run with Grade Four learners in the primary school, and explored their understanding of race, as well as their views of people from the different races that they identified. They were also asked about their own experiences of being treated in a negatively prejudiced way. The results show that while the children tended to be reluctant at first to speak about issues of race, many of them had very strong views about their own and other groups. Some children showed very strong prejudice towards people from out-groups, while others displayed strong own-group preference, with little out-group prejudice. On the whole, participants were very reluctant to speak of experiences of negative prejudice shown towards them. The report is concluded with some recommendations for further study into this area of South African children, race and prejudice, as well as some recommendations to the school where the study was conducted. KEYWORDS: Racism, Prejudice, Desegregated Schooling, Children, Post Apartheid Education, Contact Hypothesis, Social Identity Development Theory. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8242 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:05.102Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publishDateRange | 2014 |
| publishDateSort | 2014 |
| publisher | Department of Social Development |
| publisherStr | Department of Social Development |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8242 A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school West, Verusha Sturgeon, Shona Clinical Practice in Social Work The researcher is a social worker at a primary school in Cape Town. This school was previously reserved for white children during the apartheid era, but now provides education for a multi-racial group of children, who are predominantly of mixed race. The researcher became aware that incidents of bullying and learner conflict in the school took on a racial flavour at times, but that there was a tendency to deny that race was a difficulty with which the children struggled. She embarked on this research in order to examine the views and experiences of these learners with regards to race and prejudice. The researcher employed a qualitative research design and made use of a number of focus groups to gather data. These groups were run with Grade Four learners in the primary school, and explored their understanding of race, as well as their views of people from the different races that they identified. They were also asked about their own experiences of being treated in a negatively prejudiced way. The results show that while the children tended to be reluctant at first to speak about issues of race, many of them had very strong views about their own and other groups. Some children showed very strong prejudice towards people from out-groups, while others displayed strong own-group preference, with little out-group prejudice. On the whole, participants were very reluctant to speak of experiences of negative prejudice shown towards them. The report is concluded with some recommendations for further study into this area of South African children, race and prejudice, as well as some recommendations to the school where the study was conducted. KEYWORDS: Racism, Prejudice, Desegregated Schooling, Children, Post Apartheid Education, Contact Hypothesis, Social Identity Development Theory. 2014-10-08T09:35:52Z 2014-10-08T09:35:52Z 2009 Master Thesis Masters MSocSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8242 eng application/pdf Department of Social Development Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Clinical Practice in Social Work West, Verusha A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| title_full | A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| title_fullStr | A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| title_full_unstemmed | A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| title_short | A study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in Grade Four learners at a Cape Town primary school |
| title_sort | study of the perceptions of race and experience of prejudice in grade four learners at a cape town primary school |
| topic | Clinical Practice in Social Work |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8242 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT westverusha astudyoftheperceptionsofraceandexperienceofprejudiceingradefourlearnersatacapetownprimaryschool AT westverusha studyoftheperceptionsofraceandexperienceofprejudiceingradefourlearnersatacapetownprimaryschool |