South African parents’ view of their role in the education of their young children in South Africa as democratic citizens

Abstract

This study addressed the knowledge gap regarding South African parents’ view of their role in the education of young children as democratic citizens. The study was conducted with parents of children younger than 8 years in 2 multicultural primary schools in Gauteng, South Africa. The explanatory sequential mixed methods research design was used to collect data from parents in order to answer the research question. The quantitative data were gathered first by means of a questionnaire, and afterwards the qualitative data were gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The research results showed that when educating their young children to democratic citizenship, participating parents consider various values of a democratic citizen as important including responsibility, respect, participation, norms and values, peacebuilding, love, loyalty, deliberations, kindness, commitment, non-racism, non-sexism, equality, reconciliation, self-control, forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, open-mindedness, a sense of belonging, rule of law and social justice. Participating parents also regard their example as democratic citizens, respect, participation and the creation of a safe, proud and free democratic society as important. They did, however, consider the media and other bad role models as challenges when educating their young children towards democratic citizenship. The most important finding of the study is the influence of negative societal and political factors on the attitudes and opinions of the participating parents. New insights that emerged from the study includes that these parents want to do their best to educate their children as democratic citizens in South Africa, in the best interest of their children as future democratic citizens, but are hindered by certain societal and political factors.