DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN WHITE SOUTH-AFRICAN EDUCATION, 1990-1992

Changes introduced in white schools in South Africa in September 1990 after decades of authoritarian, racially segregated and unequal educat ion had the potential to start a process of fundamental educational re form. Diffusion of the innovation started in the southwestern coastal areas of South Africa and spread along the south and eastern toasts be fore turning inland to the deep interior. The diffusion had a hierarch ical spatial spread based on the sizes of settlements. Socially, it wa s influenced by language, political ethos, population density and perc eived racial distances. Although considered to be shortsighted, self-s erving adaptive measures, these changes have re-situated white educati on in a position where its socio-economic exclusiveness is now defined in terms of class rather than race.