Integrating Afrikaner women’s history in senior secondary school CAPS through an evaluation of women’s “sense of independence”

Abstract

In 2011 the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for History at senior secondary school level was released. The content selection was directly influenced by the notion that History supports citizenship within a democracy. This opened the avenue for women’s history to be introduced on senior secondary level. The aim of this article is twofold, namely to motivate the need to integrate women’s history in implementing the senior secondary History CAPS by evaluating the content where women features and to provide an historical overview of Afrikaner women’s role in South African history as an example of integrating Afrikaner women’s history in the teaching of the CAPS content. The theories and methodologies of gender history are of the utmost importance to realise the civic aims of the CAPS, but the discussion of gender is beyond the scope of this article. This article identifies the lack of focus on women in the History CAPS despite the claim that history supports citizenship within a democracy by also representing gender-issues. Challenges to integrating women’s history are then outlined. As an example of how women’s history can relate to the major CAPS topics, an integrative and compensatory history of Afrikaner women is provided through evaluating women’s “sense of independence” by describing their role in key events that shaped South African history, resistance against colonialism, and the development of proto-nationalism.