Xenophobia and Religious Education: Evoking an Education that Takes Responsibility in South Africa

Abstract

Xenophobia, despite various interventions, remains a thorny issue in South Africa with implications to curriculum practices. Thus, the paper responds to questions and these are; what are the trajectories of xenophobia within the curriculum, and how religious education takes responsibility for it? We used critical emancipatory research to couch a qualitative study that strategically random sampled 12 participants who were school learners, non-South Africans employed as teachers, and principals. The findings suggest that, while South Africa has made strides in many aspects, the issue of xenophobia still taunts the beauty of the rainbow nation, thereby creating African exceptionalism, isolation and social crises that affect learners directly. The study also found out the xenophobia has implications to teaching and learning, thus, requiring the problem to be tackled at curriculum level. We argue that religious education has the impetus to contribute to mitigating the challenges associated with xenophobia from a curriculum angle.

Keywords

• african exceptionalism
• religious education
• school context
• south africa
• xenophobia