PROJECT DESIGN

The project has a multi-layered design. Working with the imprimatur of The University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and LIU-Post in the United States, professors from both universities have been meeting for the last ten years to share ideas and their perspectives on the themes of the initiative. A chapter in the Handbook of Educational Leadership and Social (In)Justice (Springer, 2013) written by Dr. Arnold Dodge from LIU-Post and Dr. Berte van Wyk from the University of Stellenbosch (the directors of the program) provides the backdrop for the work.

The Project’s Guiding Questions

How do racial divisions affect schools?

How does poverty affect schools?

What is the nexus between poverty and race?

How does de facto segregation play a part in perpetuating the racial divide?

How does white privilege play a part in perpetuating the racial divide?

What are the historical antecedents of the racial divide in South Africa and the US?

How do we build empathy into our schools’ curriculum?

How do we build capacity in under-resourced schools?

How will student empowerment improve the challenges of the racial divide?

How do we promote the idea that there is strength in diversity?

Principals from schools in South Africa and the United States have attended ongoing workshops in their home countries with professors from both universities. Partner schools from Long Island engage in exchanges with schools in South Africa, including best classroom practices, narratives of home life, community service endeavors, arts and sports programs, photo galleries, audio archives, and live conversations via SKYPE and other electronic media. Delegations from both countries visit their partner schools across the ocean on a yearly basis. A broad network of communications amongst all schools provides coherence and continuity to the work.

Research is ongoing throughout the project, including an extensive interview protocol (conducted by Professor Dodge) recently administered in 14 schools in both countries. Results of the interview project can be found in the article The Persistence of the Racial Divide in South Africa and the United States: Examining Critical Race Perspectives of School Leaders in the Western Cape and Long Island published in the International Journal of Education and Social Science (January, 2017).

Conceptually, the work of the project is divided into two basic domains: Advocacy Leadership and School Partnerships. While the approaches differ in their emphases, participants in the project are typically involved in both.

US and South African principals advance the goals of the project through:

Roundtable discussions on personal viewpoints regarding race, poverty and schooling and those gleaned from experiences in their professional environment(s).

An annual symposium on the persistence of the racial divide.

Findings from interviews based on critical race theory.

Visitations to other schools involved in the project.

Additional sources to grow the work: review of pertinent documents, (e.g., policy and law governing schools); artifacts from school cultures (e.g., teacher handbooks, student yearbooks); reflections (those gathered as the project proceeds); data gathering (from various and sometimes unlikely sources), (tentative) hypotheses development, etc.

Development of an agenda to advocate for change, offer support, and involve a wider audience/more participants in the work.

Part I Advocacy Leadership

Part II School Partnerships

Partner schools share initiatives which include:

Classroom Practices - Practices which focus on effective assessment, meeting the needs of diverse learners, the use of technology to enhance performance, student-centered learning approaches

Service Learning - Students create their own solutions to their communities’ problems/challenges. Teams of students develop their own action plans to remediate the problems (based on Design to Improve Life - a project based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

The Arts - Theater, dance, painting/drawing, sculpting, etc., to stimulate personal creativity and increase understanding of one another’s cultures

Student Narratives - “Stories of hurt and hope” shared to increase empathy and build relationships

Schools support their partner schools with the introduction/installation of new programs and expansion of existing programs in these areas.

Note: All activities, investigations, sharing, forums, etc. occur in both intra-country and inter-country environments.

Sole - A pedagogical approach, (coordinated by Sugata Mitra, Newcastle University, England) which asks students to develop skills through a self-organized learning environment (SOLE)

The Courageous Conversations Project:

Examining the Persistence of the Racial Divide in South Africa and the United States

US/South Africa Initiative

The Courageous Conversations Project attempts to elicit frank discourse on the subject of race, poverty and schooling, understanding that present day educational matters reside within the larger context of historical narratives. The project, coordinated by educational leaders in the United States and South Africa, is fueled by the courage of the participants to be actors in uncharted territory. The participants are creating an “aspirational space” to motivate others to join in these conversations. This “space” bestrides the twin phenomena of race and poverty. The project attempts to unpack the social/capital inheritances of youngsters in South African and US schools. The school leaders involved have pledged to contribute to the project in the spirit of social change.