Race, culture and social work education in the South African interregnum : a contextual analysis of attitudes and practice in the period 1990-1994

• Main Author: Mackintosh, Ian
• Other Authors: Swartz, Leslie
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2014
• Subjects: Social Development
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7835

Summary in English.|Bibliography: leaves 329-360. === Welfare services generally were racially segregated and highly unequal, being heavily skewed towards the needs of the white population. Such welfare policies and service patterns were increasingly justified in ideological terms by reference to a specific form of cultural relativism rather than overt racist argument. With the dramatic political changes heralded by the unbanning of anti-apartheid political organisations in 1990 South Africa entered an uncertain interregnum period in which the existing government lacked legitimacy but a new democratic government was not yet in place. This period, up to the general election in 1994, represented a ""Prague spring"" in which open debate and argument regarding future social policy and government flourished. It was therefore a time of both great excitement and hope for most South Africans yet anxiety for those who were identified with the old order. It was within this cntext that this study explored, by means of a national survey, the views and attitudes of social work educators in all tertiary institutions in South Africa towards issues of culture, race and transformation.