Integrating knowledge systems in South African school education as crises response : re-focusing on epistemological questions

Abstract

Situated in ongoing scholarly reflections on how to respond to interconnected educational, epistemological and colonial crises, the article proposes that a bold giant leap scenario for transforming South Africa’s school education system may be one such response. To that end, the article engages with discourses on integrating indigenous and Euro-Western knowledge systems. The article argues for a holistic rather than tokenistic integration – one that requires examining epistemological assumptions and revisiting basic questions such as why, what, and how to integrate indigenous knowing. It suggests (re-) installing Ubuntu as an overarching rationale for integrating knowledge systems. Drawing on this rationale and on insights from a participatory action research study, the article makes several recommendations to inform future research and policy work: recognising the global importance of local indigenous practices; position teachers as facilitators of dialogue between epistemologies; combine approaches of teaching both non-predefined and predefined indigenous knowing; develop epistemologically appropriate ways to represent indigenous knowing in curricula and textbooks