The effectiveness of the South African Schools Act to desegregate the schools of the Gauteng Province.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there has been a noticeable trend in the inter-racial migration of learners within the Gauteng Province of South Africa after the enactment of the South African Schools Act #84 (1996). An assessment of such a trend was achieved by exploring the Act's related provisions in fostering desegregation of schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa. This study was guided by a historical research approach that was explanatory and descriptive in nature. The methodology used to analyze the data was both qualitative and quantitative. The first part of this investigation analyzed the quantitative data and included a descriptive examination of the percentages for non-White learners in previously designated White schools compared to the percentage of White learners in previously designated non-White schools. The researcher used the t-test to determine the significant difference of the means in percentages of learners, with the probability level of 0.05 for dependent samples which are paired by racial group. The researcher formulated conclusions to the hypotheses based on the relationships between the percentages of learners per given racial group at the respective schools following the enactment of the Act. The second part of the study was the analysis of the interviews of four respondents who gave a synopses of education within the Gauteng schools. Open coding and Axial coding systems were utilized in the analysis of the interviews under-girded by the grounded theory which was inter-woven throughout the discussion, recommendations, general implications and conclusions.