Prof Linda Chisholm

Professor
Name: Linda Chisholm
Location: Research Village, House 3 Bunting Road Campus
CERT Staff, Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Faculty of Education, NRF Rated Researchers  Staff Members

Contact Details:
Tel: 011 559 1148/1920

Email: lchisholm@uj.ac.za

About Prof Linda Chisholm

Linda Chisholm is a Professor and a former special advisor to the Minister of Basic Education in South Africa, and before that a Director in the Education and Skills Development research unit at the Human Sciences Research Council, Professor and Chair of Education at the University of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) and Director of the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She has worked closely with government on curriculum reform, has served on several journal editorial boards and is currently on the international advisory board of the Journal of Curriculum Studies.  She has published widely on the historical, contemporary and comparative aspects of education policy and curriculum in South Africa and the region. Her most recent books include Between Worlds: German Missionaries and the Transition from Mission to Bantu Education (Wits Press, 2017) and Teacher Preparation in South Africa: History, Policy and Future Perspectives (Emerald Press, 2019).  

‘My research focus has straddled history and contemporary education and curriculum policy in South Africa and the region with an emphasis on the relationship between past, present and future. While I have retained a consistent interest in comparative and transnational education, post-colonial studies’ concerns with the complexities of local appropriations and adaptations, forms of hybridization, boundaries-crossings and -blurrings, interrelationships, entanglements and relationalities, have been at the centre of my work on learner-centred education in Africa, migration and education, textbook representations, curriculum and teacher education.’  

Publications

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Linda_Chisholm2/research 

Chisholm, L. ‘Landscapes of Education in South African History’ (forthcoming) in George Noblit (Ed) Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education.  (New York, Oxford University Press, forthcoming) 

Chisholm, L. ‘Transnationalism, Migration and Education in South Africa’ in R. Natarajan (ed) Sprache – Bildung – Geschlecht: Interdisziplinäre Ansätze in Flucht- und Migrationskontexten (Language – Education – Gender: Interdisciplinary Approaches in Refugee and Migration contexts) (Springer, 2020 forthcoming) 

Chisholm, L. ‘Transnational colonial entanglements: South African teacher education college curricula’ in Gary McCulloch, Mariano Gonzalez Delgado and Ivor Goodson (eds) Transnational Perspectives on Curriculum History (London: Routledge, 2020) 

Chisholm, L.  ‘Corona, Crisis and Curriculum: History of Health Education in South Africa’, Southern African Review of Education, 2020 

Chisholm, L. Teacher Preparation in South Africa: History, Policy and Future Direction (Bingley, UK: Emerald Press, 2019) 

Chisholm, L. and Fig, D., ‘The Cold War in South African History Textbooks’ in Barbara Christophe, Peter Gautschi and Robert Thorp (eds) The Cold War in the Classroom : International Perspectives on Textbooks and Memory Practices (New York: Palgrave, 2019) 

‘Late-Apartheid Education Reforms and Bantustan Entanglements’, African Historical Review, vol. 50, Issue 1-2, 2018, pp 27-45  

Linda Chisholm, Michelle Friedman and Queenta Anyele Sindoh, ‘Decolonising History of Education in South African Teacher Education’ Southern African Review of Education vol. 24, no. 1, 2018, pp. 74-91 

‘Representations of Race, Class and Gender in Textbooks’ in E Fuchs and A Bock. (eds) Palgrave International Handbook of Textbook Studies (New York: Palgrave, 2018)  

Chisholm, L. Between Worlds: German Missionaries and the Transition from Mission to Bantu Education (Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2017) 

‘Bantustan Education History: The ‘Progressivism’ of Bophutatswana’s Primary Education Upgrade Programme (PEUP), 1979-1988’ in S. Ally and A Lissoni (eds.) New Histories of South Africa’s Apartheid-Era Bantustans (Routledge, 2017) 

‘”Fate Comes to the Mission Schools”: Fire at Bethel, 1953’,  South African Historical Journal vol.69, no. 1, 2017, pp.121-31 

‘Curriculum Transition in Germany and South Africa, 1990-2010,’ Comparative Education, vol. 51, no. 3, 2015, pp. 401-418 

‘Comparing History Textbooks in Apartheid South Africa and the German Democratic Republic, 1950-1990,’ Southern African Review of Education, vol. 22, no. 1, 2015, pp. 80-94. 

Education

Ph.D. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1989) MA University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (1980) Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) University of London Institute of Education (1978) BA (Hons) University of Cape Town (1976)

Employment History

Professor, Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg Special Advisor to Minister of Basic Education, 2015 Director, Human Science Research Council : in research programmes: Education, Science and Skills Development; Child Youth, Family and Social Development and Education Policy Research, 2002-2009 Chair and Professor of Education, University of Natal Durban (now University of KwaZulu-Natal), 2000 Director, Education Policy Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1991-1999 Senior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1989-1991 Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1984-1989 Junior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1981-1984 1994 – To date National Government Appointments Member of Ministerial Committee on Diversity in South African Textbooks, 2016-8 Special Advisor to Minister of Basic Education, 2009-2014 Reference Group, Ministerial Committee on Gender Equality in Education, 2004 – 2005 Ministerial Committee Project Leader for Review and Revision of Curriculum 2005, Ministry of Education, Pretoria, 2000-2002 Chair, Ministerial Review Committee to review Curriculum 2005, 2000

Other Positions held

Board member of the Centre for Research on Education and the Labour Market, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Advisory Board member of Wits Mathematics South African Research Chairs Connect project Board member of Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) Johannesburg Member of ILO/UNESCO Board of Experts on Teachers   NRF B Rated Researcher

Editorships

2017 – 2018 Associate Editor (Education and Social Science) ASSAF’s South African Journal of Science 2014 – Executive Committee member of Education as Change 2012 – International Advisory Board, Journal of Curriculum Studies 2008 – Editorial Advisory Board, Girlhood Studies 2013-7 Associate Editor of International Journal of Educational Development 2005- 2010 Editor, Southern African Review of Education 2008 – 2012 Editorial Advisory Board, Development Southern Africa 2002- 2008 International Advisory Editorial Board, Compare 2006-8 International Advisory Board, Gender and Education 2004- Editorial Advisory Board, African Education Review 2005-8 HSRC Press Editorial Board

Professional Registration and Affiliations

International Standing Conference on the History of Education (ISCHE) (Scientific Committee) Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) (Member) British Education Research Association (Member) South African Education Research Association (SAERA) (Member) Southern African Comparative and History Education Society (SACHES)