'A little hard piece of grass in your shoe': understanding student resistance to critical literacy in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper engages with some of the tensions raised by critical literacy in the post-apartheid South African context, both theoretically and in classroom practice. I examine Kress's (1996; 2000) challenge to the notion of 'critique', exploring the way in which critical literacy pedagogy is linked to the particular socio-political and historical context in which it takes place. As an illustration of this, I look at the development of critical literacy in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. I then turn to an analysis of data from my classroom-based research in a first year undergraduate English and Cultural Studies course in South Africa and explore how and why students might resist critical literacy pedagogy. In particular, I focus on moments of resistance in a critical reading course using South African literature, exploring the students' difficulties in dealing with the apartheid past. I theorise these moments of resistance in relation to Kress's challenge to the notion of 'critique' and in relation to the feminist post-structuralist theorising of identity, arguing that the students' identities or subjectivities affect their ability to engage with the course.