Consciousness in Transition: A Case Study of Social Identity Formation in KwaZulu-Natal Study Description and Methodology

Grades:

3.1 This study involves approximately 1474 respondents, 388 of whom are the primary cohort of grade one scholars. In the first episode of field work carried out over the four months March to June, 1997 a further 345 respondents were in grade four, 319 were in grade 7 and 422 in grade 9.

3.2 Although initially a smaller sized sample had been envisaged, it became increasingly apparent that in order to meet the comparative objectives of the study and to do so in a way which would satisfy quantitative research requirements, the size of the overall sample had to be increased. Part of the reason for this lay in the wide range in size of the schools ^[1] and therefore, the number of pupils in each grade at each school. In the end, all pupils in grades one, four, seven and nine at all participating schools became part of the study sample, with the exception of three -the primary and secondary urban, historically black schools (Sanzwili, Georgetown and Lidgetton Primary) and the urban, historically white high school (Carter High). At these, the number of pupils in each grade were sufficiently large to draw a sample.

3.3 However, the final size of the sample was modified due to parental or respondent unwillingness to participate in the programme, absenteeism on the days when field work was done and incomplete questionnaires.

3.4 The final number of respondents for the study per grade in each school was:

OPEN IN VIEWER

SCHOOL	GRADE 1	GRADE 4	GRADE 7	GRADE 9	TOTAL
Epworth primary&high	35	28	29	41	133
Henley Primary	115	77	95		287
Georgetown High				168	168
Lidgetton Combined	44	26	46	61	177
Mtholangqondo High					42
Northern Park Primary	48	57	62		167
Sanzwili Primary	146	157	87		390
Carter High				110	110
Total	388	345	319	422	1474

Gender:

3.5 The gender composition of the sample is fairly evenly divided between the sexes, although the overall balance tends to favour girls and young women (53% female and 47% male), albeit only slightly in grades one and seven (50.5:40.5 and 52:48 females to males respectively) but more markedly in grades four and nine (54:46 and 55.5:44.5 females to males respectively). ^[2]

Race:

3.6 Overall, this is largely a study of black (African) and white school-going children, a racial composition determined by the schools selected for the study. Six of the schools are exclusively black (Henley Primary, Georgetown High, Mtholangqondo, Lidgetton Primary, Jabula High, Sanswili) while four of the schools (Epworth Primary, Epworth High, Carter High, Northern Park) have a minority of black scholars, most of whom are African. The programme was not able to include schools historically set up to service Coloured and Indian children because of a lack of resources. 77 % of the respondents are black (African) and 18% are white, 2% are coloured and 3% Indian. In the primary cohort; grade one - 82% of the sample are Black, 10% are White, 4 % Indian and 3% Coloured. In grade four; 80% of the sample are Black, 15% are White, 3% Indian and 2% Coloured. In grade seven; 77% were Black 20% were White and 3% were Indian. In grade nine 68% were Black, 26% were white, 2% were Indian and 4% were Coloured.

Age:

4.2 Part of the motivation for selecting children by grade was to demarcate groups of scholars within relatively narrowly defined age bands of three or four years. As it turns out, the spread of ages across each grade is wider, with evident racial, sexual and locality characteristics.

4.3 The overall study population spans the age range 6 - 27. In grade one, 23% of the sample are seven years old. 23% are in grade four where the average age is 11, 22% are in grade seven where the average age is 14 and 29% are in grade nine, where the average age is 16. However, it needs to be noted that within each grade there is a proportion of respondents who are over the age norm. For the most part, the reason for respondents being over age can be attributed to repeat years. Overall, 64 % of respondents said that they had never failed, 27% report failing once and 9% have failed twice or more. Some are likely to have started late and others may have dropped in and out of schooling as circumstances outside the schooling context dictated.

4.4 Since it is inappropriate to presume age from grade, the data is analysed by age. As the chart shows, 39% of respondents are 6-10 years old, 14% are 11-12 years old, 32% are 13-15 years old, 12% are 16-18 years old and 3% (n=47) are 19 years old.

4.5 Three observations can be drawn from the study population.. Firstly, while the study's assumption that grade one is the first contact children have with the formal education system, the ages of between 8% and 16% of respondents suggest that for approximately one tenth of the children interviewed in 1997, their first contact is a repeated contact. This needs further investigation.

4.6 Secondly, while White, Indian and Coloured children are most likely to move through the education system more or less in compliance with the age norms, the passage of black children through the system is characteristically much more bumpy and uncertain. This is an important aspect which we will have to address in our future investigations.

4.7 Thirdly, for black school going children, the peer environment of the majority of younger grade members is influenced, if not shaped by a group of older girls and boys who share their school day. This has potentially pervasive consequences for gender identity formation and is an issue which warrants further research.

Conceptualization

5.1 Consciousness is at the interface between structure and agency. Eye (1978) captures this positioning of consciousness in asserting that it cannot be separated from the objective world; it is caught up in this world at the very moment that it takes possession of it. He (ibid) goes on to explain that consciousness is neither completely objective nor exclusively subjective, but rather is ambiguous in form. As such, developing an approach to explore social identity across disciplines poses enormous theoretical and methodological challenges. The team engaged in discipline specific literature reviews as well as intensive debate about appropriate ways of approaching the research both in terms of theory and methods.

5.2 A preliminary scan of the literature in South Africa reveals that there is a general paucity of research into social identity or consciousness in children and teenagers. The discipline which has developed theories and tools for these age sets is psychology, although mostly around the areas not of our concern, except for social identity theory in social psychology which provides a useful starting point.

5.3 For the purposes of the study, whilst there was and continues to be theoretical exchange across disciplines and perspectives, the programme did not seek theoretical consensus nor did we anticipate only one outcome. Rather, a lower order agreement around critical issues was preferred; which could be informative across disciplines and within different theoretical frameworks. This approach made co-operation practical and applied. At the same time it created the expectation and possibility for synergy -where outputs would not only be bound by the limits of each discipline or particular theories/hypotheses.

5.4 Working from the assumption that understanding consciousness needs research into both structure and agency. Middens (1977) view is that the social world is constituted as meaningful by the meanings ascribed to it by humans in the course of their interactions with it while at the same time these interactions act to constitute and reconstitute the actors as well. It is within this context that the team decided that our efforts needed to focus in on the children's comprehension, experiences and sense of place in their worlds. This decision meant that in developing research questions and instruments we often had to resist approaches which would take the study into their homes, communities or the education system.

5.5 In order to delimit the concepts of class, race and gender, the team identified themes or areas which we considered to be useful and important signifiers of each concept and through which it would be possible to explore social identity. In no particular order, they were poverty, work, food eating habits and well being, gender and sexual identity, racial identity, self-esteem, prejudices and preferences, hierarchy and values, and sense of place & space. These were then developed in a range of instruments as concrete questions or problems.

5.6 The CRG Research Programme combined survey, experimental and interpretative research methods in order to generate a complex set of data which would capture the complexities of life across a wide range of children whose ages and experiences are very diverse. The possibilities of using qualitative research techniques were substantially constrained by financial, scale, time, and data capture limitations. Nevertheless, and although much of the data was captured through quantitative techniques, it was also possible to experimentally modify qualitative methods.

5.7 Fifteen instruments were developed to collect anthropometric and dietary, psychological and sociological information. These were driven from discipline specific hypotheses and practices, although appropriately, there is overlap.

Anthropometric:

5.8 A group of three instruments focus on anthropometric, diet and habitual physical activity. The first is an anthropometric data record which measures the height, weight and arm, waist and hip circumferences of each of the respondents.. The second is a 24 hour dietary recall worksheet\exercise where respondents are asked to recall and record everything they ate or drank the previous day. The purpose of the exercise is to capture food types as well as the regularity of food intake. No attempt was made to establish quantities largely because of the difficulty of getting reliable responses. The third instrument is an observation sheet which captures the habitual physical activity levels and preferences of respondents, as observed by teachers. Given the brief presence of the research team in each of the schools, this exercise had to draw on the teachers’ accumulated knowledge and observations of learners. All three instruments are standardized and fairly routine procedures. While the physical information serves to create a more complete picture of respondents health and well being, the information gathered in the dietary recall exercise is expected to yield social and cultural insights.

Social and Psychological:

5.9 Another cluster of three instruments are driven by social and individual psychological concerns. ^[3] The first is a Social Status Technique derived from Central's Self-Anchoring Striving Scale where respondents are asked to place other individuals hierarchically. Rather than doing this pictorially with drawings, as the exercise had originally been developed, ladders were built and stylized figures were created and respondents were asked to place them physically on the ladder in response to questions asked. Two sets of six figures were created, each consisting of male and female “dolls” for white, black (African) and Indian people. One set of figures depicts economically better-off learners; the other, learners who are economically poor.

5.10 The exercise does not involve a forced choice as more than one figure can be placed on any step. The Social Status Technique is a measure of preference, social stratification and personal identification built around a set of “who” questions. Given a choice of six stylized figures, children are asked 10 questions - who has the best food, who is the happiest with their life, who does best at school, who gets sick the most, who walks the most, who should sort out a problem, who will get the best job, who will become an important person in the world, who has the most friends and who is most like the respondent. Their responses are then scored. This exercise was implemented using the split-half technique, with half the respondents using one set of figures and the other half the other set of figures. To overcome interviewer bias, they used both sets of stylized figures alternately.

Self Esteem:

5.11 A further two instruments which focus on individual self-esteem are used in order to get a sense of how respondents value themselves and perceive themselves in relation to others. The Self Scale and the Culture Free Self-Esteem Inventory (CFSEI), as standardized, internationally validated instruments, are used, unmodified. The sub-scales of the CFSEI give data on social, academic and parental-relationship issues.

General and Sociological:

5.12 The next set of eight instruments are sociological - albeit, with evident general application for the whole programme. There are four questionnaires which explore experiences and attitudes. The first covers demographic and locational information about the respondent asking. questions about kin and household, dwelling type space and place, amenities and services, religion and literacy, domestic work, and residential and geographical mobility.

5.13 The second questionnaire explores poverty and work, asking questions about food routines and hunger, clothes, attendance at school, educational aspirations and possible obstacles to achieving these, pocket and spending money, and the differences between rich and poor people as well as economic activity and the type of work of parents and respondent, employment aspirations and perceptions of the importance of work.

5.14 The third questionnaire focuses on gender and sexuality, asking questions about the similarities and differences between boys and girls, their own play and leisure time preferences, gendered expectations about activities now and in the future, marriage and sexual preferences, pregnancy, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases and gendered responsibilities in regard to these, name calling and abuse and sense of self

5.15 And the fourth questionnaire asks about race and colour, covering self-categorization, prejudices and preferences, colour and its impact on present achievements and future aspirations, inter-racial contact, name calling and bullying, and sense of self.

5.16 The fifth instrument is a 12 hour activity recall, where with very limited markers, respondents are asked to remember and record what they did from the time the bell rang at the end of the previous school day until the time the school bell rang the following morning. The purpose of this exercise is to get an insight into after-school routines, what children and adolescents do and the social differences these activities may represent. As with the dietary recall, no attempt is made to quantify activities in time.

5.17 The next exercise - “mapping the main meal”- is an experimental activity developed to get a sense of the respondent's place in his or her family or household. Modifying techniques developed in Participatory Rural Appraisal, respondents are asked to plot their previous main meal - in which room they sat, where they sat, who they ate with, who prepared the food, who served it and in what order, who got more or less food and why, whether they helped somebody else eat and why, whether there was a prayer or blessing, whether people talked, watched TV, read or listened to the radio during meal time, their sense of what the main meal means to them, etc. Their responses are then described and analysed in relation socio-economic and demographic information.

5.18 The last two instruments are qualitative and are intentionally broad. In a “A Joke and Three Expressions I have Heard” respondents are asked to write down any joke that they have heard told about other people. Similarly, in recording three expressions or sayings they have heard, respondents are asked to reflect those that are used to describe other people. The purpose of this exercise is to get a sense of prejudice and difference and to examine the social differences in how these are presented.

5.19 The final exercise in this group is an essay, the subject of which is “A Memorable Experience”. Respondents are asked to write down a good or bad experience and to write about a mark or impression that has endured. The main aim is to get participants in the research programme to voice their experience, to locate it in a social context and to relate it to the way they come to be the people they are.

5.20 The last exercise, administered at the end of the process, is a Feedback sheet. Self evident in its purpose, this instrument is designed as an open-ended reflection by participants in the research process. It is innovative, in as much as it is built into the design of the programme and all respondents are asked to use it.

5.21 Together, these instruments yielded a wealth of data, however, in working through the feedback sheets several important questions about process have come to the fore. An important issue which the study has raised is the issue of using multiple surveys. In capturing the data for each survey it was found that each survey had different totals due to either spoilt or incomplete questionnaires. It is therefore difficult to establish what the total population really is because the totals for different questionnaires do not correspond.