Unearthing white academics’ experience of teaching in higher education in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The real and imagined racial differences and similarities between groups of students and staff have consequences in everyday experiences in South Africa. One aspect of engaging with the challenges facing higher education transformation post-Apartheid is through understanding how the racialized context interacts with the experience of teaching. This paper reports on what the narratives of four white academics reveal about their experience of teaching at the University of Cape Town (UCT). It analyses indicators of their identity as white academics and how they are both positioned and actively position themselves in relation to students and other academics at UCT. Their narratives reveal how academics simultaneously grapple with the privileges and limitations that accompany identifying as white. These tensions are explored through issues of black student development amid an alienating institutional culture and opposition to the behaviour of their white colleagues.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• race
• teaching
• transformation
• whiteness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCiD

Jeff Jawitz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7777-6689

Notes

1. Pseudonyms have been used at the request of the individuals involved in this study.

2. Melvin’s uses the term ‘black’ differs from my inclusive use and refers only to students categorised as African in the Employment Equity Act.