Skip to main content

Scholarship Students in Elite South African Schools

The Gift of a Scholarship

  • Book
  • © 2022

Overview

  • Focuses on research on what is distinctive about elite schools in the South Africa context
  • Examines scholarship recipients navigating elite school spaces in the context of post-apartheid South Africa
  • Foregrounds the scholarship participants' voices about navigational practices into the elite school context

Part of the book series: Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education (CSTE, volume 16)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (8 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book provides a narrative account of the experiences of twenty former scholarship students from historically disadvantaged communities who attended elite public and private secondary schools. It draws on in-depth, one-on-one semi-structured interviews conducted with former scholarship recipients who were between the ages of 19 and 24 years at the time of the interviews. Various themes are explored, specifically focusing on elite schooling in relation to the experiences and navigational practices of the scholarship recipients and the adjustments that they felt they needed to make in order to fit into the elite school space.
The book analyses and discusses the reflective experiences of students who were awarded a scholarship to attend an elite secondary school. It reveals that accepting the gift of a scholarship is far more complex, multi-layered, and at times harsh and even painful for the individual recipients than is possibly realized by those involved in thispractice. This book contributes to academic educational debates within the sociology of education, elite schools and schooling in the post-apartheid South African context.

Reviews

“Wallace and Feldman make a valuable contribution to understandings of marginalized students in exceptional circumstances, which will make educators think again about their students and the challenges they face. … Scholarship Students in Elite South African Schools: The Gift of a Scholarship by Jennifer Wallace and Jennifer Feldman provides fascinating insights into the experiences of underprivileged Black students who secured scholarships … . I found the book engaging, timely and well written.” (George Variyan, Karen Lillie, and Aline Courtois, Discourse - Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, May 10, 2023)

“Empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated, this book provides a most engaging account of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who received a scholarship to attend an elite South African secondary school – of how they think about and negotiate their disadvantage in the contradictory landscape of post-apartheid South African education. It shows how the ‘two-tiered’ system persists in South Africa, and how social class has become a more significant factor in determining social privilege and access to quality education.” (Fazal Rizvi, Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia)

“Scholarship Students in Elite South African Schools is a timely and well researched volume that foregrounds the trajectories and perspectives of disadvantaged students who are scholarship awardees to elite schools in the ever-evolving post-apatheid context.The writing here is consistently insightful and refreshing. I highly recommend this volume to readers interested in understanding matters of the articulation of privilege and class in the post-apartheid South African educational context.” (Cameron McCarthy, University Scholar, University of Illinois at Urbana)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Jennifer Wallace

  • Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Jennifer Feldman

About the authors

Jennifer Wallace is the Principal of a fee-paying public girls-only school located in Cape Town, South Africa. The focus of her research work, and recently submitted PhD, is on the experiences of scholarship students within elite educational institutions in post-apartheid South Africa. Jennnifer Feldman is a lecturer in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University. Her research and teaching focus primarily on issues of education, policy and management in relation to South African education; marginalized students, diversity, inclusivity and social justice; and the integration of technology in teaching and learning in diverse educational contexts.


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Scholarship Students in Elite South African Schools

  • Book Subtitle: The Gift of a Scholarship

  • Authors: Jennifer Wallace, Jennifer Feldman

  • Series Title: Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7536-3

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-19-7535-6Published: 17 November 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-19-7538-7Published: 18 November 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-19-7536-3Published: 16 November 2022

  • Series ISSN: 2345-7708

  • Series E-ISSN: 2345-7716

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 139

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Sociology of Education, Education, general, Administration, Organization and Leadership

Publish with us