Saloshna Vandeyar - Böcker

Diversity High offers special insight into school change and social transition in racially divided communities. It underlines the obvious notion that change is difficult and confirms that leadership in an academic environment matters in changing schools. Vandeyar and Jansen provide a thorough investigation allowing readers to distinguish second-order changes (changes to curriculum, staffing, culture, and leadership), from first-order changes, (changes in student complexion in de-racializing schools). The study demonstrates the non-linearity of reforms by capturing the dynamism of change in powerful photographic records ranging from origins to change (demonstrated through black and white to color pictures). Conveying complexity through the ways in which race, class and culture intersect to produce unintended consequences; this book is concise and expertly researched. Ultimately, Vandeyar and Jansen celebrate human agency over determinist structures at the center of change through their in-depth analysis of a white South African high school that pursued transformation against the grain of its own racial biography.

This is a ground-breaking research study on Black immigrant identities in South African schools. It is the first major book on racial integration and immigrant children in South African schools. The overall aim of this study is to investigate how immigrant students negotiate and mediate their identity within the South African schooling context.This study set out to explain this complex phenomenon, guided by the following research objectives: One, to describe how immigrant student identities are framed, challenged, asserted and negotiated within the institutional cultures of schools. Two, to evaluate the extent to which the ethos of these schools has been transformed towards integration in the truest sense and to determine how immigrant students perceive this in practice? Three, to explore the ‘transnational social fields’ in terms of social networks and cross-border linkages of immigrant students and how this impacts on their identity formation. Four, to determine if there are any new forms of immigrant student self-identities that are beginning to emerge? Five, to determine the extent to which racial desegregation has been accompanied by social integration between immigrant and local students. Six, to determine the impact of the South African social/schooling context on immigrant student identity formation. And seven, to identify critical lessons and ‘good practice’ that could be learnt and used to accelerate the racial desegregation and social integration of immigrant students in South African schools.