Public History and the School Curriculum: Two South African Case Studies

Case study provides an opportunity both to explore historical incidents or topics and to discuss the inherent questions that they raise. In considering the challenges faced by teachers and students in the public history content of prescribed school history curricula, it seems appropriate to select the most obvious cases to investigate. South Africans who went to school before the democratic era (pre1996) would have no hesitation in identifying The Great Trek1 as the dominant narrative and prevailing public history theme in the history they experienced at school. Similarly, anyone, citizen or visitor, who was asked to identify an iconic site in the history of apartheid and the political transformation of South Africa would be bound to identify Robben Island, on which Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for eighteen years (see Siebörger 2012 regarding the post-apartheid school history curriculum).2