Between Worlds

Linda Chisholm is a Professor in the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. She has authored more than 15 books on education including Changing Class: Education and Social Change in Post-apartheid South Africa (2004).

• AcknowledgementsMaps, Photographs and TablesList of AbbreviationsIntroductionMissionaries in educationTransition from mission to Bantu EducationTransnationalism, colonialism and educationThe Hermannsburg Mission Society and educationConclusionChapter OneTransnational Cooperation, the Hermannsburgers and Bantu EducationWho were the Hermannsburgers?Transnational cooperationHermannsburgers, politics and educationEurope and Africa as imagined by the HermannsburgersImages of Europe and Africa: Heinz Dehnke and Micah KgasiConclusionChapter TwoBurning Bethel in 1953: Changing Educational Practices and ControlBethel Training Institute 1920–1953Rising tensions, conflagration and immediate reactions: April–May 1953The investigationOfficial discoursesRights of studentsThe trialConsequencesStudentsWithdrawal of registration and transferConclusionChapter ThreeChiefs, Missionaries, Communities and the Department ofBantu EducationBethanie 1938–1946Ramakokstad 1946–1952Saron, Phokeng 1952–1954ConclusionCHAPTER FOURNegotiating the Transfer to Bantu Education in NatalMaking the decision: 1954Negotiated dispossession by contract: 1955–1968Bantu community schoolsFarm schoolsPrivate schoolsContinuitiesMissions, school principals and the Department of Bantu EducationConclusionCHAPTER FIVECurriculum, Language, Textbooks and TeachersIndigenous languages as languages of instructionTextbook development as a transnational, colonial activityCurriculum policy and African responses: 19551955 Bantu Education textbook and syllabus policyContent of readersPrinciples of reading instructionConclusionChapter SixUmpumulo: From Teacher Training College to Theological SeminaryChanges in the teacher training curriculum: 1945–1955Gendered social institutional practicesFrom cautious uncertainty to misgivingDisillusion and departureConclusionChapter SevenTransnationalism and Black Consciousness at Umpumulo SeminaryFinance, governance and staffingChanging identitiesStudents, the curriculum and relations with the stateThe formal curriculumLimitations on accessThe informal curriculumThe Missiological InstituteStudent resistanceAsserting moral authority and regulating sexualityConclusionChapter EightBophutatswana’s Educational History and the HermannsburgersBantu Education and Bantustan educationThe Primary Education Upgrade Programme (PEUP): educationalprogressivism, ethnic nationalism and transnationalismThe PEUP in practiceAcademic assessments, programme evaluations and teacher responsesConclusionChapter NineInkatha and the HermannsburgersInkatha’s Ubuntu-botho syllabus and the HermannsburgersBlack Consciousness, independent churches and marginalisationConclusionChapter TenTransitions through the MissionPaulina DlaminiNaboth MokgatleConclusionConclusionNote On SourcesNotesReferences

In Between Worlds Linda Chisholm meticulously and with great sensitivity dissects how one mission society, the German Hermannsburg Mission Society, parleyed its decision to remain within the state system in the shift from mission to Bantu Education, in creative and important ways. The book is a detailed portrait of the Hermannsburg Mission’s education work, but also a critical and insightful commentary on a set of broader questions, reflecting off the current political moment in South Africa."" — Professor Natasha Erlank, Historical Studies, University of Johannesburg ""Linda Chisholm’s account of German Lutheran missionaries’ school and teacher education work in South Africa disrupts conventional understandings of the role of missionaries in the development of South Africa’s education system. Drawing on extensive archival research in South Africa and Germany, the history of the largely ignored Hermannsburg Mission reveals the ambiguities and contradictions which marked their complex relationships with local communities and the colonial and apartheid state"" — Volker Wedekind, University of Nottingham