Using law and education as agents for social change in South Africa

Abstract

The most dramatic example of social change in recent South African history was the abolishment of apartheid in 1994. Social change in post-apartheid South Africa is a progressive but nonetheless slow, complicated and multifaceted process. A potential impediment or cause of the slow progress could be that we are not making full use of the potential the law has to positively influence this process. A possible reason why the law is not currently being used sufficiently to effect social change is a lack of proper or effective socialising agents.. In this mini-dissertation I theorise that education is on the one hand an agent which has much potential to influence this change, but on the other hand may also be the cause of a substantial impediment and delay of social change.