South Africa Is My Best World

In this work, the author grapples with the nuanced concept of democratic citizenship education and how this affects the lives of young children. The book is based on a case study of nine-year-old children of an inner-city school in South Africa and their life experiences of a democratic South Africa as child citizens.

This scholarly work appears at a crucial moment in South Africa. With the country now democratically independent for close to 20 years, the authors provide a comprehensive description of schooling and overall education, that allows the reader to see if or how the wide social development gaps that existed during the apartheid period are changing. This book is a rare academic contribution to the current linguistic and culturally rich classroom that teachers now work in daily. The authors report that some teachers are flummoxed by what they find, newly trained teachers seem better prepared, while others bring old but good teaching habits into the classroom. Overall, this book, rooted as it is in meticulous, long-term ethnographic classroom observations and multiple teacher interviews, shows that what is effective for the learning of learners is not by any means detachable from demographic, economic or political contexts. With that in mind, the book`s intentions and structure are clear, and the initial historical analyses provide insight to the important linguistic, social and cultural connections or disconnections present in contemporary South Africa.

Africa is a big but very magical place. It is home to some of the world’s most interesting people and animals too. This educational book will take you to Africa. It will let you meet the people, taste the food and enjoy the culture too. It’s an imaginary adventure that you will never forget so grab a copy now!

The universal jubilation that greeted Nelson Mandela's inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994 and the process by which the nightmare of apartheid had been banished is one of the most thrilling, hopeful stories in the modern era: peaceful, rational change was possible and, as with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the weight of an oppressive history was suddenly lifted. R.W. Johnson's major new book tells the story of South Africa from that magic period to the bitter disappointment of the present. As it turned out, it was not so easy for South Africa to shake off its past. The profound damage of apartheid meant there was not an adequate educated black middle class to run the new state and apartheid had done great psychological harm too, issues that no amount of goodwill could wish away. Equally damaging were the new leaders, many of whom had lived in exile or in prison for much of their adult lives and who tried to impose decrepit, Eastern Bloc political ideas on a world that had long moved on. This disastrous combination has had a terrible impact - it poisoned everything from big business to education to energy utilities to AIDS policy to relations with Zimbabwe. At the heart of the book lies the ruinous figure of Thabo Mbeki, whose over-reaching ambitions led to catastrophic failure on almost every front. But, as Johnson makes clear, Mbeki may have contributed more than anyone else to bringing South Africa close to "failed state" status, but he had plenty of help.

Conquering America captures the true life experiences of a girl in her mid twenties that got the opportunity to go work at the headquarters of her company in America. It contains fun things she did, the strange things she encountered, the missing and longing for the things she left behind in South Africa as well as finding herself, losing love, finding love and the joys and ordeals she encountered with immigrating to America. The outline of this book is based on the weekly Pittsburgh Posts that she sent to her loved ones back home to inform them on what she is doing, also to educate and tell them what she did and what she found. These weekly posts got very good feedback and her distribution list grew as the months flew past. This book will appeal to everyone that has lived overseas, everyone that is currently living overseas, everyone that wants to live overseas as well as anyone that loves to travel. Life lessons learned and general knowledge obtained is shared in a straightforward manner in this book.

"The standard of contribution is high . . . the reader gets a good sense of the cutting edge of historical research." – African Affairs

These engaging and forthright interviews bring together the life stories of thirteen black athletes who have risen to the top rank of their sport. In revealing and fascinating detail, these athletes describe how they succeeded in the face of often daunting odds, often the result of economic barriers and racist attitudes and practices.