Overview

This book considers the formation of South Africa’s universities, more specifically those that evolved as colleges, taking a panoramic view over two centuries, from colonialism to democracy. The book traces their development from incipient hubs of learning to fully fledged universities, and currently into a reconfigured landscape, as the social compacts between community, church, state, capital, and university have shifted. The university is analysed in situ, as an organisational structure, along two dimensions. First, state regulation, institutional autonomy, academic governance and individual-corporate agency. Second, at the epistemic and cultural levels, selected knowledge vignettes are identified, which is then followed by an engagement with different notions of religion, language and approaches to humanity. The book sheds some light on the imprint this has had on university types and the institutional, epistemic and cultural questions confronting the democratic state and contemporary society. Contextualising the South African case in relation to other countries with a British colonial footprint, this book will be of interest to a range of scholars across the fields of higher education, political studies, sociology, anthropology, history, decolonisation, and African Studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Beverley Thaver ,  Lionel Thaver
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.670kg
ISBN:  

9781041143222

ISBN 10:   1041143222
Pages:   260
Publication Date:   22 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Part One: The Colonial Period and the Emergence of University Colleges 1: The dawn of the British-Dutch scramble for power and knowledge 2: Anglo and Dutch-Afrikaner Epistemic, Cultural and Symbolic Orders Part Two: The Segregationist State and the Anglicisation of University Colleges and Universities 3: Institutionalisation of University Colleges: An Anglicised footprint 4: British Hegemonic and Dutch-Afrikaner Counter-Hegemonic Epistemic and Cultural Orders Part Three: The Apartheid State and the Racialization and Ethnicization of the University Sector 5: Afrikaner Hegemony, Deepening Institutionalization and the Formation of New Universities 6: Racialisation and Ethnicization of Epistemic and Cultural Orders Part Four: The Constitutional Democratic State: Towards Equity, Diversity and Reshaping of the University Landscape 7: Democratisation of Universities and Institutional Levelling 8: Foregrounding Epistemic and Cultural Diversity 9: The New University Order: Reflections and Possibilities

Reviews

""The Emergence and Formation of Universities in South Africa: Shifting Social Compacts"" is a timely and insightful contribution. It sheds light on the historical, political, and social forces shaping universities, while critically analysing evolving agreements. Essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and educators dedicated to understanding and promoting higher education transformation in South Africa."" LM Luvalo, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Higher Education at the College of Education, University of South Africa. ""This ambitious, and transformative volume narrates, historicizes and analyzes how South African universities, over time, have both impacted and been transformed by South Africa’s tumultuous past and present. The text is both an important cultural history with its knowledge vignettes, and is a major theoretical contribution to the central question of the role of the university in any society."" Frances Maher, Professor Emerita of Education, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA, co-author of Privilege and Diversity in the Academy, (Routledge, 2007). “This book offers a rigorous, panoramic analysis of the evolution of South Africa’s universities over two centuries, situating them within global colonial and postcolonial transformations. Combining sociology and higher education studies, it appeals to scholars of comparative education, decolonization, and institutional transformation across Africa and the Global South."" Rosenilton S. Oliveira, Professor, Faculdade de Educação, Espaço Das Artes, Universidade de São Paulo.

""The Emergence and Formation of Universities in South Africa: Shifting Social Compacts"" is a timely and insightful contribution. It sheds light on the historical, political, and social forces shaping universities, while critically analysing evolving agreements. Essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and educators dedicated to understanding and promoting higher education transformation in South Africa."" LM Luvalo, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Higher Education at the College of Education, University of South Africa.

Author Information

Beverley Thaver, BA History (UCT), MA African History (York, UK) and PhD Adult Education (UWC) is Professor Emeritus, Higher Education Studies, University of the Western Cape. She started out her academic professional career at Khanya College established for detainees from Robben Island in the late 1980s, then, in 1990 moved to the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education, UWC. Following this, she moved to the Education Policy Unit, UWC which at the time was deepening its research into education policy development for democracy. She has held the portfolio of Deputy Dean of Research in the Faculty of Education. She has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level in adult and teacher education, holding a strong research portfolio that includes supervisions and publications. The broad focus of her research is on transformation dynamics of universities in South Africa, with a specific emphasis on the deracialisation of the academic staff profiles, affirmative action, institutional culture, conducting research at both systems and institutional levels. She has also published in private higher education. She has served as a Ministerial appointee to the Council on Higher Education, for two terms, 2011 – 2018. She is currently active in the Public Participation and Civil Society Network under the auspices of the Public Participation Office, South African Parliament. Lionel Thaver, BA (Sociology, History, Political Studies-Majors), BA Honours (Sociology), MA (Sociology Cum Laude), PhD (Sociology) UWC. He is a longstanding member of the Sociology department at UWC, whose teaching specialisation is in Contemporary Sociological Theory with a particular focus on African Philosophy, and Epistemology and its bearing on the decolonization and Africanization of the discipline. In addition, he specializes in the Sociology of Technology which covers broad theoretical frameworks probing the relationship between society and technology, the history of technology and specific technologies such as the Internet and Social Network Sites and its bearing on Social Movements, the Digital Divide and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At the postgraduate level he focuses on Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology and the Sociology of Higher Education and has published and conducted research in the aforementioned fields of study. He has led several forums at universities, nationally, on Institutional culture including the Ministry of Higher Education.

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