The thinking of African history teachers on Afrocentrism - a case study

Abstract

In recent years, there have been calls to reform the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for the History curriculum in South Africa because it has been viewed as Eurocentric. As a result, in 2015 the Department of Basic Education (DBE) established a Ministerial Task Team to review the CAPS History curriculum. The Ministerial Task Team, which recommended that there should be a complete overhaul of the current CAPS History curriculum and a new Afrocentric History curriculum introduced, released its report in 2018. This paper addresses the thinking of African history teachers on Afrocentrism and the reasons behind their thinking. The qualitative case study focused on selected African history teachers in selected schools in Makhanda. Conversational interviews were used to construct the data that sought to understand the thinking of African history teachers on Afrocentrism and the reasons behind their thinking. Furthermore, the theoretical framework, the Logos of Afrocentrism, and thematic analysis were employed in the analysis of the constructed data. The findings of this study indicate that the thinking of the African history teachers on Afrocentrism was filled with ambiguities and even contradictions. This means that, at times, the thinking of the African history teachers was essentialist, although it could also be inclusivist in some instances. In addition, the findings of this study indicate that there were various factors, including age, education, and upbringing, that influenced the thinking of the African history teachers.