Research Associate, UCT / Emeritus Professor, UWC

Research Associate

Interests: The history of education in South Africa and British colonial Africa – the interaction between missionary educators, philanthropists and colonial governments with regard to the development of educational policy in the inter-war years; vocational education Africa; apartheid and education ;Teacher Education; history education; comparative education; globalization and educational policy development since 1945.

Selected publications

Recent books:

• (with Crain Soudien, Charlotte Fischer, Michael Cross) A New History of Formal Schooling in South Africa 1658-1910 (Cape Town: HSRC Press,2024)
• 2020-22 The Changing Landscape of Colonial Education in Africa: Education, Science and Development" (Oxford: Routledge/Taylor & Francis)(Stellenbosch: African Sun Media).
• 2016 (edited with Rebecca Swartz) Empire and Education in Africa (Peter Lang, New York, 2016/ UKZN Press 2019).
• 2002-3 History of Education Under Apartheid: 1948-1994 (ed.)(Peter Lang, New York and MML/Pearson, Cape Town) NB: This collection was concerned to research and document key aspects of the history of education under apartheid. The project was supported by the Centre for Educational Policy Studies (CEPD). 1000 copies sold by October 2003.
• (1997) (ed. with G Kruss, A Fataar & G Donn), Education after Apartheid: South African Education in Transition (Cape Town: UCT Press,1997)
• (1987) (editor) History Alive: 10 (Pietermaritzburg. Shuter and Shooter). (school history textbook for Standard 10).
• (1986) (editor) History Alive: 9 (Pietermaritzburg. Shuter and Shooter.) (school history textbook for Standard 9)
• (1986) (with Patrick Pearson) Johannesburg: Images and Continuities: A History of Working Class Life through Pictures 1885-1935. (Johannesburg,
  Ravan Press/History Workshop).
• (1984) (editor) Apartheid and Education (Johannesburg, Ravan )(7 impressions).

Recent articles and chapters in books:

• 2026 “The Search for Educational Utopia: The Rhetoric and Reality of Educational Reform in time so social change: France 1798-1804 and South Africa 1985-2000,” Yesterday and Today , Vol.36 (July 2026).
• 2023 “I used to Believer … and now I Believe”: Notes from a South African Teacher Educator.” Yesterday & Today, 30 (Dec. 2023); 85-103.
• 2023 “Julian Huxley and a Biological Approach to Education in British East Africa during the inter-War years,” Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, 60(6) (2023):1157-1174.
• 2023 ‘William Bryant Mumford -1900-1951: Entrepreneur in Colonial Education,” History of Education,52(6) (2023): 833-848.
• 2023 Review of Mark Hunter, Race for Education: Gender, White Tone and Schooling in South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2019) in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 16(2)(Spring,2023) :324-327.
• 2022 “Knowledge for the People Understanding the complex heritage of colonial education in South Africa,” Yesterday & Today, 28 (December 2022):44-81.
• 2021 Review of Pam Christie, Decolonizing Schooling in South Africa:The Impossible Dream? (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2020) in Education as Change, 25(2021.
• 2020 “Welfare and Education in British Colonial Africa:1918-45,” in Miguel Bandira Geroimo, Damiano Matasci & Hugo Goncelves Dores (eds.) Development through Education: International and Imperial Policies in (post) Colonial Africa, 1890-1980s (ISCHE Global Histories of Education/Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
• 2019 “The Rise of National Education Systems: Africa,” in John L Rury & Eileen H, Tamura (eds.) Oxford Handbook of History of Education, Oxford, Oxford Handbook Series) (Oxford, OUP 2019).
• 2019 “Knowledge for the People: Understanding the Complex Heritage of Colonial Education in South Africa,” Yesterday & Today,28 (Dec 2022):44-81.
• 2018 “History in Popular Literature and Textbooks for Xhosa Schools. 1850-1950s,” Yesterday & Today, 20 (December,2018): 165-74.
• 2018 with Noor Nieftagodien & Katie Mooney, “Comrade Professor: Phil Bonner,” South African Historical Journal, 69(4) (2017): 639-644.
• 2018 Guest editor with Rebecca Swartz of a Special Section of History of Education 47(3) (May) 362-367 on Imperial, global and local histories of education. Editorial comment: Author with Rebecca Swartz: “Imperial, global and local histories of colonial education.” (Papers from the second workshop on Colonial Education in Africa held at UCT in 2016).
• 2018 Review of Linda Chisholm, Between Worlds: German Missionaries and the Transition to Bantu Education in South Africa (Johannesburg: Wits University Press,2018) in Journal of Education, 73.
• 2017 “Diedrich Westermann and the Ambiguities of Colonial Science in the inter-War Era,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 45(6): 871-893.
• 2016 “Introduction” and “German Missions, German Anthropology and Science in African Colonial Education” in Kallaway & Swartz, Empire and Education (New York: Peter Lang) : pp 1-28; 205-234
• 2016 “The Challenge of a Critical History of Education for South Africa” in Labby Ramrathan, Lesley Le Grange & Phillip Higgs (eds.)
• 2016 Educational Studies for Initial Teacher Development (Cape Town: Juta, 2016)
• 2015 “Volkskirche, Völkerkunnde and Apartheid : Lutheran Missions, German Anthropology and Science in African Education,” in Hanns Lessing, Tilman Dedering, Jürgen Kampmann & Dirkie Smit (eds.) Contested Relations: Protestantism between Southern Africa And Germany from the 1930s to the Apartheid Era, (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag/ Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2015)
• 2015 Review of Caroline Davis, Creating Postcolonial Literature: African Writers and British Publishers (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) :Journal of Southern African Studies, 41 (2) (2015) :425-429.
• 2015 “Education, Health and Social Welfare in the late Colonial Context: The International Missionary Council and Educational Transition in the Inter-War Years with specific reference to colonial Africa,” History of Education 38 (2) (2009): 217-246.
• 2014 A Story in Photographs: Don Kallaway’s War Journey: Part 1: Egypt, Palestine and Lybia, Military History Journal 16(3) (June): 103-07 Part II: Italy, 1945, Military History Journal 16(4)(December): 127-31.
• 2013 Selected by editors for REPUBLICATION in David Crook & Diedre Rafferty (Eds.) book on the 40th Anniversary of the journal History of Education: Themes and Perspectives (Routledge: 2013).
• 2012 “Science and policy: Anthropology and Education in British colonial Africa in the inter-war years,” Pedagogical Historical, 48(3): 411-430).
• 2011 “Historical Trends in Overseas Scholarship Funding in Southern Africa prior to 1994,” Norrag News, 45, Special edition on The New Politics of Overseas Scholarships & Awards? : Old and New Providers: East & West, North & South. NORRAG website, www.norrag.org
• 2011 “Adapting to African Realities versus International Outcomes, ”A paper presented at a conference in honour of Prof Michel Carton, Graduate School of International and Development Studies, Geneva,and published as Conference Proceedings as part of a collection entitled Knowledge, Skills and Development: Global Frameworks and Local Realities in Higher and Technical Education. See NORAG Website (www.norag.org) (2011)
• 2011 Review of Cynthia Kros, The Seeds of Separate Development: Origins of Bantu Education (Pretoria, UNISA. 2010) in South African Historical Journal, June 1911.
• 2010 “Civic education in the context of South Africa’s history and political struggles,” Southern African Review of Education, 16 (1): 15-38.
• 2009 “Education, Health and Social Welfare in the late Colonial Context: The International Missionary Council and Educational Transition in the Inter-War Years with specific reference to colonial Africa,” History of Education 38 (2) (2009) : 217-246. Selected by editors for REPUBLICATION in David Crook & Diedre Rafferty (eds.) book on the 40th Anniversary of the journal History of Education (Routledge/Taylor& Francis.
• 2008 with Crain Soudien, “Education in Africa”: Contribution to the International Encyclopaedia of Education (London, Routledge References).