Exploring transformative social justice teaching: A South African education policy perspective

Edwin Darrell de Klerk
Sol Plaatje University, South Africa
June Monica Palmer
Central University of Technology, South Africa

It is vital that in-service teachers transcend their professional knowledge, towards a recurrently developing research base about transformative social justice issues. This paper provides a theoretical lens from a South African education policy perspective on how in-service teachers could develop professional knowledge about transformative social justice teaching in public schools. Scholars argue that when in-service teachers surpass their professional knowledge base, it empowers them to transform learning spaces. Discourse analysis was applied to the Continuous Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) policy to understand professional knowledge and to identify transformative signposts for social justice teaching emerging from the policy. The findings show that the main barrier to professional development is a perceived lack of attention to the value and applicability of transformative social justice teaching practices for in-service teachers, while teaching and engaging in CPTD activities. Conclusions and recommendations were drawn based on the analysed data. The study recommends that for in-service teachers to perform more competently in their learning spaces, while maintaining the reputation of both their designation and the profession, they must engage in a continuous process of professional development.
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Authors: Dr Edwin Darrell de Klerk is Senior Lecturer (Philosophy in Education) of the School of Education at Sol Plaatje University, South Africa. His research interests predominately focus on autonomy, pre-service teachers' development, policy studies and transformative social justice issues. Foucauldian studies is also an area of interest. Email: edwin.deklerk@spu.ac.za Dr June Monica Palmer is Senior Lecturer (Education Management and Leadership) in the Department of Postgraduate Studies at the Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa. Her research interests include emotional intelligence, transformative school leadership, teacher autonomy and pre-service teachers' development and inclusive learning pedagogies. Email: jpalmer@cut.ac.za Please cite as: De Klerk, E. D. & Palmer, J. M. (2020). Exploring transformative social justice teaching: A South African education policy perspective. Issues in Educational Research, 30(3), 828-844. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/de-klerk.pdf