Democratic engagements in the social studies classroom: perceptions from four junior secondary schools in Kgatleng region of Botswana

Abstract

This study aimed at assessing the extent to which democratic practices are entrenched in the Social Studies classrooms and factors that hinder democratic classroom practices in the teaching of Social Studies in public Junior Secondary Schools in the Kgatleng region of Education in Botswana. A case is made that although democratic education is treasured as a pedagogical approach to education, the reality on the ground is that teachers of Social Studies find it difficult to educate learners through a democratic approach because of daunting challenges such as huge class sizes, lack of resources, linguistic barriers etc. which compel teachers to teach for assessment without nurturing deliberative democracy. Data of this study was gathered from four (n=4) Junior Secondary Schools in the Kgatleng region and the results show that practicing democratic education in Social Studies classrooms is yet to become a reality in Botswana schools. Keywords: democratic education, Social Studies, exploratory teaching, Kgatleng, reconstructionist paradigm, classroom democracy