Exploration of ideological discourses of globalisation in South African Grade 12 Economics textbooks.

Abstract

Globalisation appears to offer many benefits to countries and is a phenomenon that is often punted by economists and politicians as beneficial and necessary. For protagonists of globalisation, mankind has significantly gained from the practices of globalisation. Sceptics of globalisation however see it as exacerbating the gap between rich and poor and according to critics (Vally & Spreen, 2014), nowhere is this more evident than in South Africa, with its abysmal levels of inequality. The expectations of prosperity for most South Africans remain a pipe dream as poverty, unemployment and inequality abound. With a Gini coefficient of 0.63 (Oxfam, 2018; UNDP, 2013), the country shows the highest inequality levels in the world. South Africa’s exposure to the international economic world, after more than two decades of post-apartheid trade liberalisation, has not made any significant difference to the lives of the poor and destitute. If anything, South African society has become even more unequal, amidst sustained levels of unemployment (Fioramonti, 2017; Oxfam, 2018). Given the contentious nature of the benefits of globalisation, this study thus set out to examine what notions of globalisation might be prevalent in South African grade twelve Economics textbooks. Moreover, the representations of knowledge were explored to signal whether these textbooks are used as instruments to serve global markets by presenting the discourses of globalisation as natural and inevitable. This qualitative study was grounded in Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis framework (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1992; Fairclough, 1989; 1992; 2003; 2011). Tools used to analyse visual images were also employed as images can reinforce the presentation of knowledge with a particular ideological slant (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996; 2001; Kress, 2010; Machin & Mayr, 2012). The analysis of the linguistic and visual data used the conceptual lens provided by Appadurai (1990; 1996) particularly with reference to the vocabulary he appropriated to describe the various discourses of globalisation. These discourses were financescapes (trade, capital), ethnoscapes (people, society), ideoscapes (policies and practices of governments and institutions), mediascapes (culture and media) and technoscapes (technology) (Appadurai, 1990; 1996). vi The critical analysis of the data evidenced unbalanced and biased portrayals of global trade as inevitable and desirable. The textbooks appeared to persuade the readers towards the acceptance of globalisation by ‘selling’ the concept of globalisation. The textbooks appeared to implicitly and overtly assist in the construction of worldviews favouring the outward-looking economic policies of globalisation, free trade and export promotion. Thus this subtly-embedded representation of globalisation is ideological as it serves to give hegemony to the universal and seemingly unquestionable factuality of globalisation. The evidence showed that the discourses constituted, disseminated and reproduced a particular view of globalisation. Hence the neoclassical economic canon continues to reign supreme in the official South African grade twelve Economics textbooks. The textbooks constructed and validated worldviews which can disregard the cogency of alternative views. From the analysis of textual data, the worldview of the ‘normalcy’ of global capitalism was seen in its domination of the social, political, cultural, technological and economic spheres of human existence. Given this portrayal in the textbooks, it is unlikely therefore that alternative economic policies will gain currency. Of significance too, was the revelation that the structural procedure of textbook selection, ideologically centres the state in the monopolistic role of mediator and prescriber. This study is a major contribution to the existing body of knowledge in textbook research both locally and internationally as it theorises the notion of knowledge representation. It uniquely provides an extension to the knowledge of high school economics education, as the study reveals that the grade twelve Economics textbooks are captured by a globalised neoliberal and capitalistic agenda.