Race matters and the emergence of class: views from selected South African university students

Abstract

In 2008, the Department of Education produced a report on social cohesion in higher education noting the importance of investigating and addressing race and student identities. Against this backdrop, the paper examines how a group of black working class students at a university in KwaZulu-Natal talk about race. Despite widening participation of black students at the university, class, language and space were invoked during interviews including the middle class space of the ‘coffee shop’ as entangled in the reproduction of inequalities that produce marginalisation. The analysis draws attention to the micro dynamics of class in students’ understanding of race and it relation to broader social and historical forces which crystallize into sharp inequalities for working class black students. Within the university environment it is important to recognize the differentiated experiences of students which serve to complicate a homogenous understanding of race. Treating all students in essentialist or undifferentiated racial terms would miss how class and race are invoked, maintained, and produced within specific university settings and has important implications for the development of context specific interventions in higher education.