Buthelezi, Thabisile M.Cele, Rejoice Gugu Lindiwe.2016-12-202016-12-2020152015http://hdl.handle.net/10413/13880Master of Education in Education Studies. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood 2015.This study explored forty theme stories prescribed for grade R learners in a multicultural and multiracial South African classroom context. The study was mainly concerned with the representation of culture, race, class, and disabilities in grade R theme storybooks. In addition, the study explored the grade R teacher’s strategies in teaching theme stories in their elementary classrooms considering such representations in the theme storybooks. The study employed the socio-cultural pedagogical discourse theory of Bernstein as the analytical and explanatory framework. This is a qualitative case study and thus descriptive content analysis methodology was used to analyse selected texts. The unit of analysis was forty theme stories and three grade R teachers who were interviewed. The key findings of the study show that the context and images of characters in theme storybooks still portray stereotypical passive roles for gender, class, culture, and disabilities of characters in theme story books. Furthermore, the alignment of theme storybooks with CAPS document is still debatable. Some recommendations point to further exploration of grade R teacher content knowledge and the teachers teaching strategies in relation to theme storybooks and social justice issues in multicultural and multiracial classrooms.en-ZAChildren's stories -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa -- Durban.Children's literature -- Technique.Effective teaching -- South Africa -- Durban.Multicultural education -- Activity programs -- South Africa -- Durban.Preschool teachers -- South Africa -- Durban -- Attitudes.Theses -- Education.Thesis