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Educational Inequality in Apartheid South Africa

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ABSXXX10.1177/0002764216682988American Behavioral ScientistMcKeever

Article
American Behavioral Scientist
2017, Vol. 61(1) 114­–131
Educational Inequality in © 2016 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0002764216682988
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Matthew McKeever1

Abstract
In this article, I explore the utility of effectively maintained inequality theory in
examining educational inequality in South Africa at the end of the apartheid era. As
an obviously unequal country, South Africa provides an excellent opportunity to test
the claim that even with large quantitative differences in achievement, qualitative
differences will matter. Using data from the early 1990s, I find that there were
extensive quantitative differences in secondary school transitions across respondents
in different racial categories. The minority White population was consistently able
to achieve both more and better education. At the same time, though, qualitative
distinctions mattered. For the majority of the population, particularly Africans, the
quality of education attained varied across parental background. These outcomes are
important not only for examining the veracity of effectively maintained inequality,
both in terms of racial and class differences but also because they illustrate how
educational differences have served to perpetuate inequality over time in a society
that no longer allows for the explicit denial of opportunity by race.

Keywords
South Africa, educational inequality, race and education

Introduction
South Africa consistently ranks as one of the most unequal countries in the world, with
many arguing that the country represents both a developed and developing country.
The GINI coefficient, a measurement of income inequality, is, at .65, the highest
currently measured (The World Bank, 2011). Life expectancy, health status, housing,
and other key social outcomes also vary widely (Statistics South Africa, 2011).

1Haverford College, Haverford, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Matthew McKeever, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, USA.
Email: mmckeever@haverford.edu
McKeever 115

Education is no exception: While the overall average level of education in South

Africa is quite high compared with other countries on the continent, particularly
regarding the proportion of students who make it to secondary education (UNESCO,
2011), the distribution within the country is extremely uneven (Fiske & Ladd, 2004;
Lu & Treiman, 2011). What is crucially important about educational inequality is its
central role in determining most other forms of social inequality, both at any particular
moment and over time. Differences in educational achievement change slowly. Most
education is achieved early in life, and cohort replacement processes needed to change
its distribution across a population are slow. This is true even during periods of rapid
social transformation that change the distribution of political and economic opportu-
nity, something that happened with the democratic transition in South Africa during
the 1990s. Consequently, educational differences created from the mid-20th century
onward have great importance for understanding continuing inequalities in contempo-
rary South Africa.
In this article, I examine educational inequality in South Africa within the frame-
work of EMI. In some ways, South Africa would seem an odd choice for examining
this theory of educational attainment. Much of the inequality observed there can be
attributed to the racist policies that began in the colonial era and were then fully real-
ized under apartheid. This system of laws, only fully abolished in 1994, was quite
explicit in enforcing different educational opportunities for residents depending on
their official racial classification. The resultant disparity in years of educational attain-
ment would be disputed by no one. As an obviously unequal country, however, it
provides a central case to examine the possibility that despite large quantitative differ-
ences in achievement, qualitative differences still matter. As Lucas (2001, p. 1652)
writes, “it is possible that even when quantitative differences are common, qualitative
differences are also important; if so, I posit that the socioeconomically advantaged will
use their socioeconomic advantages to secure both quantitatively and qualitatively
better outcomes.” This is a generally untestable corollary of the theory, as most indus-
trialized countries have such a small range of quantitative differences in educational
achievement. South Africa provides a venue for examining this hypothesis. In addi-
tion, this country allows an examination of how EMI can be extended to additional
qualitative distinctions beyond class background, in this case racial differences, and
how these interact with class.
In this article, I specifically examine educational inequality at the end of the apart-
heid era. Using data from the early 1990s, I show that that while there were extensive
quantitative differences across respondents in different racial categories, qualitative
differences still existed. Race did matter: The minority White population was consis-
tently able to achieve both more and better education. For the majority of the popula-
tion, particularly Africans, though, quality of education varied across parental
background. These outcomes are important not only for examining the veracity of
EMI, both in terms of racial and class differences but also because they have helped
perpetuate inequality over time in a society that no longer allows for the explicit denial
of opportunity by race.
116 American Behavioral Scientist 61(1)

The Setting
South Africa is by far the most developed country in Africa, with an economy that
dwarfs its neighbors—four and a half times larger than Angola, the next largest econ-
omy in southern Africa, and 50 times larger than that of Zimbabwe (The World Bank,
2011). It is also marked by great inequalities (Terreblanche, 2002). Two unique histori-
cal developments that shaped the nature of this inequality, and which are important for
understanding the development of educational inequality, are the comparatively long
history of the country as a mining and industrial power in the region, and the nature of
race relations since the colonial era.
The primary cause behind South Africa’s position as the leading industrial econ-
omy in Africa is its early development as a source of precious minerals for the world
economy. Colonial South Africa was initially settled by the Dutch as a farming out-
post, meant to supply the trading ships making their way around the Cape en route to
Asia. Dutch migrants settled on the southern tip of the continent to provide a stable
source of food, and as a result, the Cape Colony grew into a significant agricultural
economy with a small, but proportionally large, population of people of European
descent (Magubane, 1979; Thompson, 1990). With the takeover of the colony by the
British in the early 19th century, both the Cape and other newer settlements on the
coast grew as more English settlers moved to the developing colony. In turn, the inland
areas became more colonized as the descendants of the Dutch settlers moved into the
interior to separate themselves from the new English authorities (Omer-Cooper, 1994).
The international fortunes of the economy changed greatly with the discovery of
gold and diamond deposits at the end of the 19th century. These deposits would in the
long run result in great wealth, yet in the short run required high levels of capital
investment. Some of these funds were obtained to enable consolidation, for example,
the use of European capital by Rhodes to consolidate diamond mining in the 1880s
(Omer-Cooper, 1994; Pampallis, 1991). Much of it was for machinery and physical
transformation of the landscape, though, as the particular geography of the diamond
and gold deposits required heavy industrial investment before they could be profitably
extracted (Omer-Cooper, 1994; Thompson, 1990). For this reason, the country has for
the past 100 years been continuously located within important global economic and
political systems of trade that otherwise bypassed much of the continent during that
time (Lewis, 1990; Magubane, 1979).
A second consequence of the development of large-scale mining was the creation
of an industrial labor market in South Africa. The mines not only required a large
amount of capital to be profitable but also a great deal of labor. This labor would even-
tually come from Africans in the broader region, after they had been brought under
colonial control through a series of wars against local political groups (Omer-Cooper,
1994). These wars dispossessed residents of their previous economy, forcing them to
become dependent on wages from the mines (Browett, 1982; Lipton, 1985). They
were additionally denied access to land for independent farming through legislative
acts that granted such land to settlers of European descent (Terreblanche, 2002).
Finally, the wealth generated by the mining sector led to the development of other
McKeever 117

industries that in turn generated additional labor demands. The rise in manufacturing
shifted even more employment away from agriculture, so that by 1948 the majority of
labor in South Africa was employed in industrial jobs (Browett, 1982). The demands
of industry shaped the labor market throughout the apartheid era, which in turn affected
the educational system, as discussed below.
The second unique aspect of South Africa that shapes economic inequality is the
specific nature of race relations that have developed over its history. This complex
system of race relations relates to its history as a settler society (Glaser, 2001).
Europeans moved to the country for permanent residence as farmers, encouraged to do
so by their home countries (Magubane, 1979). These settlers gradually increased their
control over the region through wars and migration, establishing more widespread
settlements. Consequently, there has always been, compared with the rest of Africa, a
relatively large portion of residents of European ancestry. At the turn of the 20th cen-
tury, this was approximately 26% of the total population, in 1948, approximately 21%,
and at independence in 1994, 14% (Ross, 1999; Thompson, 1990). There has also been
a distinct group of people with both European and African ancestry, who formed a
population located socially in between the colonial authorities and the African groups.
In addition, due to the country’s location within the British colonial system, there was
immigration to the country from South Asia. This resulted in a substantial proportion
of residents of Indian ancestry. The development of this four race1 system under the
colonial authorities was then linked to differential rights and opportunities for groups.
There were many ways that one’s racial identification shaped economic opportuni-
ties for South Africans across the course of the 20th century. One clear early example
of this was the creation of differential rights of access to land, which was codified
under the British authorities in the 1913 Land Act (Thompson, 1990). This act limited
the rights of those of African descent to own land, solidifying White control of the best
farmland in the country. Other examples include the Mines and Works Act and the
Native Labour Regulation Act, both passed in 1911, that reserved certain jobs in the
mines and railways for Whites (Omer-Cooper, 1994). The system of racial inequality
became most developed, however, following the Nationalist Party victory in 1948.
Over the subsequent decade this party codified a system of laws, known as apartheid,
which classified all residents into one of four racial categories and systematically cre-
ated differential systems of rights and opportunities for each. This system of legisla-
tion effectively linked racial classification and inequality for decades. Apartheid was
greatly weakened during the 1980s, and officially dismantled in 1994 (Price, 1991;
Ross, 1999). This system of laws, though, continues to greatly affect economic
inequality since they shaped the early achievement of much of the current population.
This is true not only economically but also in terms of their education.

The Development of Education in South Africa

South Africa has the most developed educational system on the continent. The country
of over 50 million has nearly universal primary education, with approximately four
million students attending 6,304 secondary schools, a Gross Enrollment Ratio of 91%,
118 American Behavioral Scientist 61(1)

and over 800,000 students in one of the country’s 23 universities (South Africa
Department of Basic Education, 2010a, 2013). These numbers are much higher than
those found in any other country in the region. While today nearly universal and stan-
dardized, the educational system developed unevenly and sporadically in South Africa,
in tandem with the changing demands of an industrializing society. Over the course of
its development many politicians explicitly listed the labor market demands of an
increasingly manufacturing-based economy as the reason for requiring at least a basic
education for all residents (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). Conceptions of race and ethnicity
held by those with political power also mattered greatly. Prior to the Second World
War education consisted of a mixture of different systems, with three main distinct
pieces. The first was federally supported public schools, mostly developed by the
English colonial state after the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1902
(Christie, 1991; Omer-Cooper, 1994). The government imported teachers from abroad,
and created a structure and curriculum to match the English system of education.
These schools were primarily set up to educate Whites, with the additional purpose of
further Anglicizing the culture of this new member of the British Empire (Christie,
1991; Rakometsi, 2008).
The second piece of the educational system was set up in reaction to the establish-
ment of the English system of public schools. Many Whites in South Africa did not
want a predominantly English curriculum with English as the medium of instruction
(Christie, 1991). This group, mostly Afrikaaners but also other Whites of non-English
descent, set up a parallel system of schools based on principles known as Christian
National Education. These schools, primarily found in the provinces that were the for-
mer Boer states incorporated into the Union following the end of the English–Boer war
in 1902, retained Afrikaans as the medium of instruction (Omer-Cooper, 1994). Their
curriculum also varied from the federal public schools in ways that Afrikaaners felt
allowed them to retain their own sense of history and identity (Fiske & Ladd, 2004).
These two systems primarily served to educate Whites, with the South African state
providing little education for non-Whites. A third system of education, for Africans
and other non-Whites, consisted primarily of schools established and run by Christian
(usually foreign) missionaries (Christie, 1991; Hyslop, 1993; Martineau, 1997;
Thompson, 1990). These included not only primary and secondary schools but also
some colleges. The most preeminent among these, the South African Native College
at Fort Hare, was founded in 1916 (Fiske & Ladd, 2004; Pampallis, 1991).
Soon after World War II, the entire educational system changed greatly with the
imposition of apartheid. White schools were combined into one system, and federal
control extended over them. The central piece of legislation that changed education for
the majority South Africans was the Bantu Education Act of 1953 (Davis, 1972; Fiske
& Ladd, 2004; Rakometsi, 2008). This act established extended federal control to
education for Africans, forcing Christian organized schools to give up control or close
(Christie, 1991; Davis, 1972; Hyslop, 1993; Kallaway, 1984; Thomas, 1996). This was
extended in the 1960s to include the educational institutions of all non-White students,
through the Coloured Education Act and Indian Education Act (Rakometsi, 2008;
Ross, 1999; Wieder, 2001). This did initially lead to an increase in overall attendance,
McKeever 119

because even though education was not compulsory at first for African Blacks, there
were so few attending even a year or two of primary school under the previous patch-
work system of independent schools that enrollment could only rise (Hyslop, 1993;
Louw, van der Berg, & Yu, 2006; Motala, Dieltiens, & Sayed, 2009; Thompson, 1990).
The end result, though, was the expansion of already large inequalities in educational
attainment by race.
The creation of separate schools for students of different racial classifications was
accompanied by very unequal regulations, curriculum, and funding (Case & Yogo,
1999; Smith, 2011). There were different mandatory levels of education, with much
lower requirements for non-Whites during this period (Motala et al., 2009). White
schools emphasized more academic subjects, while schools for Africans had much
lower academic expectations, and emphasized more “practical” subjects that prepared
their pupils for blue-collar work futures (Fiske & Ladd, 2004, Hyslop, 1993; Kallaway,
1984; Maharaj, Kaufman, & Richter, 2000; Nkomo, 1990; Rakometsi, 2008). Schools
teaching non-Whites received a fraction of the government expenditures that were
given to White schools. In 1946, the government was paying more than 20 times per
capita for White education as for Blacks (Maharaj et al., 2000; Thompson, 1990). This
ratio did decline over time, although it never approached parity: By 1975, this had
changed to a 15 to 1 ratio, and dropped to 4 to 1 by 1989 (Christie, 1991; Thomas,
1996). Consequently, African schools were much more crowded than those attended
by Whites, and the physical plant significantly worse (Case & Yogo, 1999; Davis,
1972; Mncwabe, 1993). Finally, on average, the teachers in these schools were much
less qualified than those found in White schools (Fiske & Ladd, 2004; Ross, 1999;
Wieder, 2001).
Given these differences in educational opportunity across race, it comes as no sur-
prise that previous studies of education have documented extreme inequalities in the
amount of education attained by South Africans (Anderson, Case, & Lam, 2010; Lu &
Treiman, 2011; Sibanda, 2005). Whites consistently show higher average levels of
education, followed by Asians, Coloureds, and then Africans (Anderson et al., 2001;
Louw et al., 2006; Thomas, 1996). Though differences between groups did decline
greatly over the course of the 20th century, at independence, there were still vast inter-
racial differences (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). The 1996 census, the first taken of the country
as a whole, showed that the median educational level for Africans was only some pri-
mary school, with nearly one quarter having no education at all. In contrast, the median
level for Whites was a complete high school education, with nearly one quarter having
some postsecondary education (Statistics South Africa, 1999). Even though political
change happened relatively quickly in the 1990s, changes in the distribution of educa-
tion could not hope to keep pace because such a large proportion of those currently
living in South Africa went to school during the apartheid era (or even before). The
inequalities created then continue to affect the population even today, 20 years after
the transition to democracy.
Another interesting finding regarding the increase in educational inequality during
apartheid is that it was exacerbated due to rising levels of education among the most
educated non-Whites, rather than a more general rise in educational attainment for one
120 American Behavioral Scientist 61(1)

population group versus another (Louw et al., 2006; Nattrass & Ardington, 1990;
Thomas, 1996). This inequality was tied to the goal of “separate development.” A
central feature of the apartheid ideology, this was the idea that all four racial groups
should develop as separate and “complete” societies (Thompson, 1990). Consequently,
separate spaces and services were created, ranging from the establishment of different
schools all the way up to the formation of separate political states. This policy had the
consequence of providing occupational opportunities for a small portion of the non-
White population, as separate institutions required a minimum corps of well-educated
workers from each racial group (Crankshaw, 1997). Establishing Black hospitals
required Black doctors and nurses, for example. The creation of separate homelands,
which were supposed to function as separate countries, led to additional political,
occupational, and eventually, educational opportunities for Africans (Dreyer, 1989;
Rakometsi, 2008). Such jobs were a small proportion of overall employment for non-
Whites, especially in rural areas; however, they did shape opportunity. Consequently,
apartheid was not a straightforward denial of education for non-Whites, but instead a
system that led to some Blacks achieving a high level of education, with the vast
majority having little opportunity for learning.
The overall picture for educational inequality thus remains somewhat mixed. There
are great differences by race, but also the potential for different levels of inequality
within each racial group. Few studies have examined how quality of education might
also vary as well as quantity. One exception is Case and Deaton (1999), who found
that large pupil/teacher ratios, more commonly found in Black schools, greatly low-
ered math scores. In addition, the role of gender, age, and parental education is unclear.
Previous studies have found smaller than expected differences by gender (Anderson
et al., 2001; Thomas, 1996). Looking at age, while most studies of industrial societies
find that younger generations are better educated, this relationship might be partially
reversed in South Africa given the makeup of the educational system before and after
the implementation of apartheid laws. Consequently, there might be an overall lower
relationship between parent and child education than normal, given the radical change
in the educational system after 1948.

Study Design and Data

To examine inequality in educational attainment, I focus on major transitions during
students educational careers. The South African educational system loosely resembled
that found in many former English colonies. It consists of 6 years of primary educa-
tion, followed by 3 years of lower secondary, 3 years of higher secondary school, then
university (Behr, 1988; Maharaj et al., 2000). Higher secondary school was not com-
pulsory for anyone in the period I examine, and secondary schools are for the most part
unified, with no parallel vocational system of schooling. The final 3 years of school
culminated with a matriculation exams, or National Senior Certificate, that students
must pass to be certified to attend university. In 2009, approximately 61% of graduat-
ing students passed this exam, which is roughly the same proportion as passed in 1994,
although the intervening years had a great deal of variation around this number (South
McKeever 121

Table 1. Mean Years of Educational Attainment by Race.

White African Asian Coloured Total η2

All respondents
Education 11.1 (2.15) 5.1 (4.18) 8.1 (3.40) 6.9 (3.47) 7.0 (4.40) .32
Math 3.4 (1.8) 0.9 (1.81) 2.0 (1.90) 1.2 (1.71) 1.7 (2.08) .24
Science 2.6 (1.92) 0.6 (1.39) 1.0 (1.59) 0.7 (1.32) 1.1 (1.75) .23
Biology 2.9 (2.09) 1.1 (1.98) 1.6 (1.96) 1.1 (1.69) 1.6 (2.09) .12
N 2,045 4,621 321 1,540 8,526

Note: Standard deviation in parentheses.

Source: Adapted from Survey of Socioeconomic Opportunity and Achievement.

Africa Department of Basic Education, 2010a, 2010b). There are thus three transitions
crucial for each student’s educational career: transition into lower secondary school,
transition into higher secondary school, and transition into university. This last transi-
tion is relatively rare during the time period examined, particularly for non-Whites,
and so will not be included in this analysis.
In comparison with many studies of educational transitions, these might seem like
relatively low-level transitions. However, in the context of the South African labor
market, these are crucial. Educational achievement there is still lower than found in
most European countries, even though it is higher than other African societies. As
shown in Table 1, the average number of years of education for the population as a
whole is only 7 years. These numbers greatly differ by race. For example, while nearly
all Whites had completed secondary school, with on average having 11 years of
schooling, Africans had on average only 5 years. This was still useful for work, though,
as achieving even a lower secondary education gave one a set of qualifications that
helped get a better job (Treiman, McKeever, & Fodor, 1996).
The data for the analysis come from a 1991 household survey conducted in South
Africa, the Survey of Socioeconomic Opportunity and Achievement (Treiman,
Moeno, & Schlemmer, 2001).The survey involved face-to-face interviews with a
stratified random sample of individuals living in South Africa and the nominally
independent “states” of Tanskei, Venda, Bophuthatswana, and Ciskei (the TVBC
states). The TVBC states were not officially part of South Africa until they were
reincorporated with the new constitution and multiracial elections of 1994; however,
they were never truly independent countries. The instrument was conducted in
English, Afrikaans, Zulu, and Sotho, and had a response rate of over 90%. This sur-
vey asked respondents about sources of income, job history, and other standard
demographic questions. A stratified random sample of 9,086 respondents was col-
lected. The data are weighted to be representative of the entire adult population of
South Africa, including the TVBC states. Only those aged 20 years and older are
included in the analysis.
All information on respondent’s education comes from a retrospective educational
history that details each period of schooling. In the analysis, I examine the transition
122 American Behavioral Scientist 61(1)

into lower secondary school, equivalent to attending seventh grade, and the transition
into upper secondary education, equivalent to attending 10th grade. To test for inequal-
ity on qualitative dimensions of education I distinguish those who have completed
either of these transitions by whether they studied more complex subjects during their
lower or upper primary education, in this case math and science. Three divisions are
created to compare those who studied math, those who additionally studied science,
and those who studied neither. The dependent variables for each respondent thus have
four possible values: did not attend that level of education, attended, attended and
studied math, and attended and studied both math and science.
The independent variables used in the analysis are meant to capture the main influ-
ences on educational opportunity in South Africa. These include race, gender, age,
urban location, and parental background. As detailed above, one’s racial classification
greatly determined opportunities for schooling in South Africa. In this analysis, race is
measured as a set of dummy variables distinguishing Africans, Asians, and Coloureds
from Whites. Gender also greatly shaped educational opportunity in 20th-century South
Africa, with women consistently having fewer opportunities than men (Martineau,
1997; Sibanda, 2005). In the analysis, gender is dummy coded as female. Educational
opportunities were also more available in urban areas, so I include whether the respon-
dent lived in an urban area at age ten2. Age has a potentially more complicated relation-
ship to educational inequality. While educational opportunity increased over time in
general, certain protests against the apartheid regime might have lowered educational
attainment for some particular subgroups in the 1970s and 1980s (Fiske & Ladd, 2004;
Maharaj et al., 2000; Rakometsi, 2008). Two dummy variables are added into the analy-
sis to capture this potential effect. Those who were of age to start elementary school
before the advent of the Bantu education system, and those who were of age to start
elementary school after the time of the Soweto riot, which marked the beginning of the
anti-education aspect of the anti-apartheid movement. These categories are related to
age, however, not strongly enough to cause problems with multicollinearity.
Parental background is measured with two variables. The first is parental education,
coded as the highest level of education attained by either parent. The second is father’s
occupation, coded using a seven-category CASMIN or Erikson–Goldthorpe–
Portocarero (EGP) coding scheme (Erikson & Goldthorpe, 1992). This is a condensed
version of the standard class scheme used in comparative mobility research, one adapted
for the less advanced industrial setting of South Africa. These classes are the service
class (I + II, large proprietors, higher professionals, lower professionals, and higher and
lower managers), routine nonmanual workers (III), self-employed with or without
employees (IVa + IVb), farmers (IVc), skilled manual workers and manual supervisors
(V, VI), semiskilled and unskilled manual workers (VIIa), and unskilled agricultural
workers (VIIb). The use of a seven-category scheme does entail some loss of informa-
tion; however, this coding scheme is necessary given the sample size and the nature of
the labor market in this period. While a six-category scheme might have been prefera-
ble given the small sample sizes for the agricultural categories, in South Africa it is
crucial to differentiate small farmers and farm laborers. This is true not only because of
the standard of living enjoyed by holders of these two different occupations but also due
McKeever 123

to the way this distinction has been tied to race since the 1913 Land Act restricted agri-
cultural land ownership to Whites throughout most of South Africa.
There are two modeling frameworks to assess EMI. The first, using order probit or
ordered logit regression, is not appropriate for these data because preliminary analyses
showed that the parallel regression assumption is not met. For this reason, I instead
utilize a multinomal logit model framework. Although not as parsimonious, this model
better fits these data. Examining the IIA assumption using different tests does reveal
some conflict in determining whether this is the appropriate test. The Hausmann test
shows mixed results, but the Small–Hsiao test consistently demonstrates that this
assumption is not invalid. Thus, while not perfect, this method is preferable for exam-
ining these educational transitions.

Findings
Looking first at Table 2, the multinomial regression models show strong relationships
between race and educational achievement. Non-Whites are much less likely to have
made the transition into lower secondary school. Africans in particular are the least
likely in the data to have gone to secondary schools that included studies in mathemat-
ics and/or science. The differences between those designated as non-White in South
Africa are rather small, however, compared with the difference between any one of
these groups and Whites. There is also a strong gender effect. While women are some-
what less likely to have started lower primary school than men, the big difference is
that they are much less likely to have taken both mathematics and science class while
there. Those in urban areas are much more likely to have attained any of these levels
of schooling, and older respondents are less likely to have done so. The dummy vari-
ables testing for potential nonlinear time period effects were not statistically signifi-
cant, once age is controlled for.
There are positive effects of parental education across the board. Respondents
whose parents had more education were more likely to obtain more, and better, educa-
tional levels. There are also substantial differences across father’s occupation.
Compared with those who had fathers in the top two occupational groups, all respon-
dents are less likely to have attended secondary school. The children of farmers, either
small farm owners or agricultural workers, are by far the least likely to have attended
any lower secondary school. Those with fathers who were working class or lower
middle class were also less likely to have attended lower secondary school, while
those whose fathers were working class less likely to have taken mathematics and/or
science than children of lower middle-class fathers.
Another way of examining the importance of parental background on educational
attainment, and one that more directly addresses the claims of EMI, is to look at the
predicted probability for achieving these levels of education for respondents whose
parents had different occupations. To do this, I set the values for the other variables as
urban, male, of average age for those who attended lower secondary school (in this
case, age 37). I compare Whites and Africans, excluding other non-White groups to
simplify the graphs. I also examine two levels of parental background: those with
 Table 2. Mulitnomial Logistic Regression of Entry Into Lower Secondary Education.

124
Lower secondary Lower secondary with math and
Lower secondary with math science

Coefficient SE z Coefficient SE z Coefficient SE z

Race
White
Black −2.31 0.15 −15.13 −3.10 0.16 −19.64 −3.53 0.15 −24.00
Asian −2.64 0.20 −13.36 −1.86 0.18 −10.43 −2.82 0.17 −16.12
Coloured −2.68 0.18 −15.11 −2.80 0.18 −15.77 −3.23 0.16 −19.56
Female −0.25 0.07 −3.61 −0.31 0.07 −4.04 −0.66 0.07 −9.50
Urban age 10 0.91 0.11 8.17 0.44 0.12 3.73 0.36 0.10 3.51
Age −0.06 0.01 −11.75 −0.07 0.01 −11.57 −0.06 0.01 −12.48
Era of education
Pre-Bantu Education Era
High apartheid −0.19 0.15 −1.33 −0.17 0.15 −1.14 −0.05 0.14 −0.34
Late apartheid −0.09 0.22 −0.41 −0.06 0.24 −0.26 −0.09 0.22 −0.41
Parent education 0.20 0.01 17.20 0.20 0.01 15.48 0.25 0.01 20.98
Parent education missing 0.49 0.13 3.78 0.78 0.14 5.72 0.79 0.12 6.29
Father class
Managerial/professional
Routine nonmanual −0.36 0.22 −1.66 −0.49 0.22 −2.29 −0.28 0.21 −1.36
Self-employed −0.37 0.29 −1.27 −0.12 0.27 −0.44 −0.09 0.27 −0.35
Small farmers −1.33 0.29 −4.51 −1.45 0.29 −4.95 −1.29 0.26 −4.89
Skilled manual/supervisor −0.64 0.18 −4.51 −0.64 0.18 −3.63 −0.74 0.17 −4.33
Semiskilled and unskilled manual −0.55 0.17 −3.21 −0.89 0.17 −5.14 −0.81 0.16 −4.88
Farm labor −1.18 0.19 −6.08 −1.62 0.20 −8.00 −1.29 0.18 −6.97
Missing −0.67 0.17 −3.91 −1.05 0.18 −6.00 −0.77 0.17 −4.65
Constant 3.21 0.40 7.89 4.11 0.43 9.59 4.72 0.39 12.01

Note. SE = standard error; Adapted from Survey of Socioeconomic Opportunity and Achievement.
McKeever 125

Figure 1. Predicted probabilities for lower secondary school attainment.

*Most common predicted probability for each class background category.

parents who attended only through primary school and those who completed an upper
secondary education. The resulting predicted probabilities are reported in Figure 1.
The data clearly show that parental background is crucially related to educational
achievement for Africans in South Africa. The most common outcome for those whose
parents had low education and lower occupational attainment is not attending lower
secondary school, whereas respondents whose parents had less education but held bet-
ter jobs are most likely to attend a lower secondary school. For those whose parents
had more education, there is a smaller, but still pronounced difference between parents
of different occupational levels. Regardless of parent’s job, these respondents are more
likely to attend and also take math and science courses compared with other possible
outcomes. Interestingly, there is little difference across occupation for Whites. The
pattern of making the transition into lower secondary school is nearly identical across
White respondents, no matter what the level of parental education or occupation.
Moving on to upper secondary school, the models shown in Table 3 again show that
non-Whites are much less likely to have made the transition into this level of school.
These respondents are again least likely to attend more academically rigorous upper
secondary schools. Overall, Coloured respondents are much less likely to attend upper
secondary school, across nearly all types of schooling, than all other groups, and
Asians are more likely to attend rigorous schooling than other non-Whites. The data
 Table 3. Mulitnomial Logistic Regression of Entry Into Upper Secondary Education.

126
Upper secondary Upper secondary with math
Upper secondary with math and science

Coefficient SE z Coefficient SE z Coefficient SE z

Race
White
Black −2.17 0.13 −16.42 −2.48 0.16 −16.00 −3.06 0.12 −24.68
Asian −1.32 0.18 −12.84 −1.16 0.18 −6.53 −2.17 0.15 −14.54
Coloured −2.79 0.17 −16.64 −2.41 0.19 −12.93 −3.19 0.15 −21.72
Female −0.29 0.07 −4.12 −0.34 0.09 −3.85 −0.58 0.07 −8.71
Urban 0.65 0.12 5.62 0.40 0.15 2.66 −0.40 0.10 3.87
Age −0.05 0.01 −9.49 −0.06 0.01 −8.62 −0.06 0.01 −11.49
Era of education
Pre-Bantu Education Era
High apartheid −0.13 0.15 −0.91 −0.04 0.19 −0.23 0.14 0.14 0.76
Late apartheid −0.21 0.22 −0.95 −0.01 0.28 −0.02 0.03 0.20 0.16
Parent education 0.15 0.01 13.13 0.20 0.01 13.55 0.23 0.01 21.62
Parent education missing 0.59 0.13 4.50 0.66 0.18 3.72 0.75 0.12 6.05
Father class
Managerial/professional
Routine nonmanual −0.24 0.20 −1.24 −0.56 0.23 −2.49 −0.41 0.18 −2.26
Self-employed −0.39 0.26 −1.50 −0.54 0.28 −1.93 −0.44 0.23 −1.92
Small farmers −1.39 0.29 −4.80 −1.76 0.38 −4.61 −1.11 0.23 −4.65
Skilled manual/supervisor −0.59 0.16 −3.62 −0.83 0.17 −4.71 −0.83 0.15 −5.62
Semiskilled and unskilled manual −0.59 0.16 −3.73 −0.96 0.18 −5.45 −0.96 0.14 −6.63
Farm labor −1.10 0.18 −5.98 −1.33 0.22 −6.16 −1.28 0.17 −7.61
Missing −0.77 0.16 −4.79 −0.90 0.18 −5.09 −0.76 0.14 −5.29
Constant 2.41 0.39 6.13 2.27 0.48 4.70 3.51 0.36 9.73

Note. SE = standard error; Restricted to those completing lower secondary school. Adapted from Survey of Socioeconomic Opportunity and Achievement.
McKeever 127

African, Low Parental Education White, Low Parental Education

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7

0.6
* 0.6
*
0.5 * 0.5
**
0.4

*
0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
None Middle Math Science None Middle Math Science

Class 1 Class 5 Class 7 Class 1 Class 5 Class 7

African, High Parental Education White, High Parental Education

0.8 0.8

0.7 0.7
**
*
0.6 0.6

0.5 * 0.5

0.4

* * 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1
0.1

0
0
None Middle Math Science
None Middle Math Science

Class 1 Class 5 Class 7 Class 1 Class 5 Class 7

Figure 2. Predicted probabilities for upper secondary school attainment.

*Most common predicted probability for each class background category.

again show that women are less likely to make this educational transition, as are those
in nonurban areas. The effect of age is again negative, with older respondents less
likely to have this level of schooling, and again time period is not statistically
significant.
Looking at parental background, again respondents whose parents were more edu-
cated are more likely to attend any type of secondary school, as are those whose par-
ents were in the upper class. Children of farmers are the least likely to have attended
higher secondary school, and respondents whose fathers were working class were also
less likely to have taken mathematics and/or science than children of lower middle
class fathers.
The predicted probabilities for different theoretical persons, displayed in Figure 2,
show a similar story to that regarding middle school. As with Figure 1, these are reported
for urban males, this time with an age of 33 years, though, as this is the average age for
those who have attended upper secondary school. Again, the data show that parental
occupation makes a difference on the type of education received for African men.
Among those whose fathers attained only a lower level of education, not attending
higher secondary school was the most common outcome, although it nearly as likely for
those whose fathers had higher occupational standing to attend upper secondary school
128 American Behavioral Scientist 61(1)

and take both math and science courses as not attend higher secondary school. Among
the children of more highly educated fathers, African men with fathers who held work-
ing-class jobs were most likely to not attend secondary school at all, whereas those
whose fathers held the top occupations were most likely to attend and take math and
science courses. As was the case for middle school, for Whites there is little evidence
that parental background makes much difference: The most common outcome for all
Whites is to attend a better secondary school regardless of their family of origin.

Conclusion
The data on South Africa show support for the theory of EMI with regard to Africans.
Not only is the respondent’s level of educational achievement related to the occupa-
tion of their parents, but also the quality of that education. This holds even after
controlling for age, gender, and growing up in an urban area. Other research has
shown that the level of education of caregivers and economic resources of the home
are major predictors of educational success in South Africa (Anderson et al., 2001;
Liddell & Rae, 2001; Sibanda, 2005; Thomas, 1996; Townsend, Madhavan, Tollman,
Garenne, & Kahn, 2002). These findings additionally show the importance of these
factors for determining how good that educational level is for the majority of South
Africans.
The story for White respondents is quite different. For both of the levels of educa-
tional analyzed, there is very little variability for Whites in this era. The predominant
outcome is attending the best secondary schools—no matter what educational or occu-
pational background their parents had. This shows that apartheid not only led to the
well-documented unequal outcomes in the quantity of education but additionally the
quality. It also shows that in grossly unequal societies, where a small minority holds a
considerable advantage in every arena, it is possible to reduce variation in schooling
opportunities at earlier levels to eliminate much of the inequality within that one par-
ticular minority. This is not to say that important differences in educational attainment
did not exist among Whites in South Africa. Instead, what is likely the case is that
differences in quality could not be picked up by the crude measures in these data.
Alternatively, they might only become visible in postsecondary education, which was
not examined in this study.
By showing that inequality generally follows the pattern predicted by EMI, this
study further supports the idea that qualitative differences matter even when quanti-
tative differences are pervasive. In South Africa, this is important for better under-
standing both the perpetuation of racial inequality after the political and social
transformation of 1994, but also for fully understanding educational (and subse-
quent social) inequality among Africans. While rights and opportunities have been
made more equal, inequalities that existed within the educational system when most
residents were in school have created a legacy of inequality within the labor market
that cannot be quickly changed. It also affects the delivery of education today, since
the teachers and culture of learning still remain from this era (Fiske & Ladd, 2004;
Smith, 2011).
McKeever 129

Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the other members of the research group, especially Samuel R. Lucas and
Delma Bryne, for comments on earlier drafts. The meetings were supported by a grant from the
EQUALSOC International Network of Excellence of the European Union 7th Framework
Programme.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article: The author received no direct funds for this research. However, this
research was presented and discussed at a group meeting which was funded by the EU, as noted
in the acknowledgment. Those funding sources did provide some funds for researchers from
Europe.

Notes
1. In South Africa, under apartheid, there were four official racial categories created by the
state. Like most academic research, I use the terms White, Asian, Coloured, and African
(or Black) to refer to these four population groups. These terms are capitalized as they
represent official politically designated social groups in this era.
2. In the few cases where this is missing, this variable was coded as current location, which is
predominantly urban.

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Author Biography
Matthew McKeever is Professor of Sociology at Haverford College. His research focuses on
the structure of social inequality within a variety of institutional, cultural, and regional contexts,
from the U.S. and Europe to South Africa and Asia.

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