ABSTRACT
The transitional process presently underway in South Africa provides a useful opportunity to investigate the ways in which racism is constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. This opportunity arises primarily as a result of the explicit ways in which the question of ‘race’ is being addressed in the process of reconfiguring the New South Africa. Of most interest in this process, but by no means the only site in which ‘race’ is a focus, is the new Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Constitution, 1996). Given the blatantly racist nature of the system of apartheid, and its discursive heritage, the process of reformand for our purposes, the reforms in education-provide the historical and material basis for such an overt addressing of questions of ‘race’ in South Africa. This chapter draws on research conducted between 1990-6 within the Gauteng (within which Johannesburg is located) and Western Cape (where Cape Town is located) provinces of South Africa. It explores the ways in which schools in these provinces are being desegregated and the patterns that may be discerned from these developments.
