ABSTRACT
A closer look at learning outcomes in South African schools – test results and drop-out rates – shows that the apartheid template still holds valence. Ample research shows deep and persistent patterns of inequality that are linked to place and former apartheid education departments as well as class and race. This chapter first considers ‘sameness and difference’ as the template of schooling and how school funding differs. It discusses the different scales of operation of a ‘schooling system’ that need to be considered while interpreting the outcomes of schooling. The chapter explains the importance of place and the relationships of influence between place and schooling. Places are the particular contexts within which schools take their specific forms – their own tonality. The chapter discusses the aspects of Lefebvre’s analytic on the social production of space. To examine the different strands of practice that make up social space, Lefebvre’s works on The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis provide a guiding framework.
