Unite In The Diversity:Study On National Identity From The Perspective Of Education In South Africa

The new South Africa has been hailed as the "rainbow nation".The invariability of the "Rainbow" depends on the identity of the young people.The South African Congress Party has always attached importance to national identity education and viewed it as a "decisive driver" for achieving convergence in the splitter situation and promoting the construction of a multi-integrated nation.Based on empirical research,this research adopts hybrid research methods to examine the status quo of the national identity of South African youngsters,the implementation process of identity education,its significances,and the predicament.By analyzing educational elements on national identity in the textbooks,it seeks to find out the implementation and reflection of macro policies so as to make clear the relationship between the new South African youth national identity status and national identity education.In addition to the introduction,the full text is divided into four parts.The first part mainly analyzes the status of national identity of young South Africans.There is a tearing feature in the national identity for the new South African youth.While showing a strong sense of national pride and belonging,it lacks a sense of historical identity and political identity.In particular,the existence of racial rifts,the loss of African identity,and the pull-push of xenophobia exert influence on the sense of national identity,resulting in declination of South Africa's national identity of young people.The second part mainly examines the significance and challenges of the new South African national identity education,as well as the evolution of identity education policies.The new South African national identity education contributes to strengthening the patriotic awareness,boosting the national self-confidence,and embedding the spiritual core of South Africa.However,it is faced with the predicament of globalization invasion,ethnic identity destruction and the heritage of apartheid education.The educational reforms have been implemented based on the spirit of the new South African Constitution with the aim of carrying out unitary education system in which non-racial and non-gender could be realized to create a sense of weness and help form a sense of identity.It also adopts unified curriculum standards and guides the compilation of textbooks to include national symbols in order to foster the learner's belonging and pride.The third part focuses on the "South Africa" elements which may embody national identity in liberal arts textbooks used by South African primary and secondary schools.For the failure of compiling textbooks by the Congress Party,the majority of new South African textbooks are monopolized and manipulated by the British publishing groups.These materials basically comply with the requirements of the "Curriculum Evaluation Policy Statements"(CAPS).The texts contain a large number of contents that help foster national identity.At the same time,there are also signs of intentional or unintentional deviation from the curriculum,such as the relatively small proportion of the coverage on the national images of South Africa,the low proportion of national symbols in the texts of the textbooks,and the more presentation of national heroes' pictures but fewer educational stories of them,as well as that more world history than South African history presented in history textbooks.Moreover,the narrative of the text lacks the perspective of the victims,portrays the other African countries as underdeveloped and backward,and so on.In this way,some phenomena of youth national identity reflected in the status quo of South Africa can be explained.The fourth part focuses on the vision and developing tendency of national identity education in new South Africa.South Africa recognizes that national identity education is a systematic project which needs to base on the expansion of education scale as well as the supply of quality education.It has issued national plans,youth developing drafts,and education plans to outline future development blueprints to strengthen the patriotic awareness of youth and foster national cohesion.The education 2030 for sustainable development in South Africa,to some extent,puts focuses on uniting the family field,community field,and social field to help and promote school education so as to create an educational community,with a view to consolidating the educational efficiency to bridge the tearing of national identity.The review of the national identity education in new South Africa shows that the new government is intended to guarantee education equity through school-integrated education to build a sense of "weness" among youths.It seeks to promote the growth and development of national identity and contributes to strengthening national cohesion and cohesiveness.Compared with educational policies and curriculum reforms,textbooks have a more direct impact on developing youths' national identity.In view of this,the new South Africa should pay attention to the construction of textbooks while paying attention to macroeconomic policy adjustment.However,the new South Africa's education development plan for the future still focuses more on the macro level whereas failing to give due weight to the construction of textbooks proposed and emphasized by ex-president Jacob Zuma.There is still a long walk for new South Africa to go in fostering its youths' national identity through education.