The elephant in the room: Power and race at play in art practice in primary schools

Abstract

Pervasive exercising of power in educational institutions and processes could be a contributing factor to the undervalued status of art education in South African primary schools. A case study approach that aimed at gaining insight into power relations that played out in the establishment of an art education programme in a low-income area in the Western Cape, South Africa was employed. The article addresses problems of race, inequality, and exclusion as well as schools as possible spaces for critical transformative dialogue. In order to address the impoverished status of art education in primary schools, teachers should become knowledgeable in the functioning of hidden curricula to be able to work towards unbiased observation of learners. Inequality and exclusion emphasised feelings of discomfort, which relates to language and learning barriers as well as limited material and human resources. It is suggested that dialogue could cultivate within teachers greater understanding of the intersection of class, race and power, and the unfolding thereof in education. In striving for a meaningful way to work towards social justice, schools could become spaces for critical transformative dialogue in role players’ detachment from the symbolic forms of meaning that constitute their histories, social constructions, beliefs, viewpoints and preferences.