A liberating breeze of western civilisation? : a political history of fundamental pedagogics as an expression of Dutch-Afrikaner relationships.
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Date
1998
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Abstract
Fundamental pedagogics was the only education theory that was taught to the vast
majority of student teachers during the apartheid era. This exclusivity was consciously
created and maintained in the context of Christian National Education. The proponents
of fundamental pedagogics attempted to legitimise their theory by invoking the work of
the Dutch educator, M.J. Langeveld.
At first glance, there is indeed a remarkable resemblance between Langeveld's pedagogy
and fundamental pedagogics. This thesis investigates why similar-sounding statements of
the two pedagogies turn out to mean something quite different in their distinctive
contexts.
Previously, critics have analysed fundamental pedagogics as if it were a South African
invention. Its Dutch origins, diffusion and reinterpretation were lost in these analyses.
This study emphasises and investigates the Dutch roots of fundamental pedagogics and
traces its historical journey from Holland to South Africa. This journey, set between
1881 and 1963, is presented in two historical narratives, both constructed around unique
data sources.
This thesis presents fundamental pedagogics as an adaptation, arguably a distortion, of
Dutch education theory, mediated largely by politically conservative and racist forces.
The largely indiscriminate adoption of the rhetoric of Dutch social thought showed a
disrespect for the complexity of the relationship between pedagogical theories and their
site of production. Langeveld's education theory was developed in the context of post
Second World War Holland on a modernist and social democracy ticket. Fundamental
pedagogics emerged in apartheid South Africa in an ethnic-nationalist and racist
environment. These divergent meanings clearly expose pedagogy as a political as well as
an educational project.
This study concludes that the attempt to legitimise fundamental pedagogics by invoking
its Dutch roots failed. Some of the central claims and assumptions of the original theory
were abandoned to accommodate apartheid conditions.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D. Education) - University of Durban-Westville, 1998.
Keywords
Theses--Education., Education--Philosophy.