San Junior Secondary Students' Home–School Literacy Disconnection: A Case Study of a Remote Area Dweller School in Botswana

Abstract

The study investigated how San students of Botswana, in a junior community secondary school, understood literacy in school and at home. A qualitative, narrative case study approach was used to gain a deeper understanding of what students value and understand by literacy from co-participants' and informants' perspectives. Findings across participants' stories revealed that they saw literacy as those things that had value to them, and these influenced how they read the word and the world. Storytelling, games, and singing were perceived as literacy by the 6 participants in the study and the 2 San informants. Knowledge of different plants, basket weaving, and sculpting were viewed as literacy to some of the participants. The conclusion is that the participants' ways of reading and knowing the word and the world need to be included in the school curriculum for the benefit of San and non-San Batswana students alike. Also, appropriate pedagogic strategies need to be adopted in San classrooms for San formal schooling success.

Notes

¹In the Setswana naming culture, as with most other Bantu languages, names have meanings, like Lerato (Love) or Kagiso (Peace). These names are also frequently translated into their English equivalents and used as names. I have chosen here to use English equivalents of common Setswana names.