Exploration of ideological discourses of globalisation in South African Grade 12 Economics textbooks.
Loading...
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Globalisation appears to offer many benefits to countries and is a phenomenon that is often
punted by economists and politicians as beneficial and necessary. For protagonists of
globalisation, mankind has significantly gained from the practices of globalisation. Sceptics
of globalisation however see it as exacerbating the gap between rich and poor and according
to critics (Vally & Spreen, 2014), nowhere is this more evident than in South Africa, with
its abysmal levels of inequality. The expectations of prosperity for most South Africans
remain a pipe dream as poverty, unemployment and inequality abound. With a Gini
coefficient of 0.63 (Oxfam, 2018; UNDP, 2013), the country shows the highest inequality
levels in the world. South Africa’s exposure to the international economic world, after more
than two decades of post-apartheid trade liberalisation, has not made any significant
difference to the lives of the poor and destitute. If anything, South African society has
become even more unequal, amidst sustained levels of unemployment (Fioramonti, 2017;
Oxfam, 2018).
Given the contentious nature of the benefits of globalisation, this study thus set out to
examine what notions of globalisation might be prevalent in South African grade twelve
Economics textbooks. Moreover, the representations of knowledge were explored to signal
whether these textbooks are used as instruments to serve global markets by presenting the
discourses of globalisation as natural and inevitable.
This qualitative study was grounded in Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse
Analysis framework (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1992; Fairclough, 1989; 1992; 2003;
2011). Tools used to analyse visual images were also employed as images can reinforce the
presentation of knowledge with a particular ideological slant (Kress and van Leeuwen,
1996; 2001; Kress, 2010; Machin & Mayr, 2012). The analysis of the linguistic and visual
data used the conceptual lens provided by Appadurai (1990; 1996) particularly with
reference to the vocabulary he appropriated to describe the various discourses of
globalisation. These discourses were financescapes (trade, capital), ethnoscapes (people,
society), ideoscapes (policies and practices of governments and institutions), mediascapes
(culture and media) and technoscapes (technology) (Appadurai, 1990; 1996).
vi
The critical analysis of the data evidenced unbalanced and biased portrayals of global trade
as inevitable and desirable. The textbooks appeared to persuade the readers towards the
acceptance of globalisation by ‘selling’ the concept of globalisation. The textbooks
appeared to implicitly and overtly assist in the construction of worldviews favouring the
outward-looking economic policies of globalisation, free trade and export promotion. Thus
this subtly-embedded representation of globalisation is ideological as it serves to give
hegemony to the universal and seemingly unquestionable factuality of globalisation. The
evidence showed that the discourses constituted, disseminated and reproduced a particular
view of globalisation. Hence the neoclassical economic canon continues to reign supreme
in the official South African grade twelve Economics textbooks.
The textbooks constructed and validated worldviews which can disregard the cogency of
alternative views. From the analysis of textual data, the worldview of the ‘normalcy’ of
global capitalism was seen in its domination of the social, political, cultural, technological
and economic spheres of human existence. Given this portrayal in the textbooks, it is
unlikely therefore that alternative economic policies will gain currency. Of significance
too, was the revelation that the structural procedure of textbook selection, ideologically
centres the state in the monopolistic role of mediator and prescriber.
This study is a major contribution to the existing body of knowledge in textbook research
both locally and internationally as it theorises the notion of knowledge representation. It
uniquely provides an extension to the knowledge of high school economics education, as
the study reveals that the grade twelve Economics textbooks are captured by a globalised
neoliberal and capitalistic agenda.
Description
Doctoral Degree, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.