Student Culture and Activism in Black South African Universities : The Roots of Resistance

Turmoil in higher education has mounted in South Africa to a level wherein black institutions have been virtually paralyzed by conflict and occasionally transformed into armed garrisons. How this situation has come about is the subject of Nkomo's study. The author demonstrates that segregated education for blacks has inadvertently produced a distinct and contradictory culture of resistance for a substantial part of the African student body. Ethnic African universities have become cradles of vociferous student resistance to apartheid and have nurtured a new generation of activists responding to factors external to the formal university structure and curriculua. Nkomo provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of the principal legislation and subsequent amendments; the ethnic-racial personnel composition, structures, and curricula of the institutions; expenditures; and the promotion of an official institutional culture that seeks to impose an Afrikaner orientation and produce sycophantic African student graduates. A demonstration of the profound interplay of politics and education, the book reveals African students to be dynamic actors within the educational arena.