Educators' understanding of learners' right to freedom of expression

Abstract

The dissertation contributed to relevant work in the field of education law. Schools in South Africa must find appropriate ways of dealing with learner rights, which they must protect, promote, limit and fulfil as an institution of state in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 108 of 1996. Unfortunately, schools and educators have received copious media attention because of learner rights violations. Although many studies have examined issues of learner rights there has to my knowledge not been a strong enough focus on educators’ understanding of learners’ right to freedom of expression, as these understandings determine to a large extent the way in which educators will respond to the demand to treat learners’ right to freedom of expression in an acceptable manner. This study contributed to educators’ understanding of learners’ right to freedom of expression and the protection, promotion, limitation and the fulfilment of this right in order to reduce the incidents of learner rights violations. I made use of qualitative research methods to explore the understandings educators had regarding learners’ right to freedom of expression in independent and public schools. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, investigating literature and case law regarding learners’ rights. Participants were selected using purposive sampling and consisted of educators in management positions as well as junior and senior educators in post level one positions. The theoretical lens of this dissertation was based on the theory of dignity under the umbrella of human rights theory that I used to support the conceptual framework derived from Chapter 2 of the Bill of Rights that state in section 7(2) that the government must protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights, and section 7(3) that these rights may be limited according to the criteria in section 36.