Towards gender and sexual diversity in South African schools: exploring the policy development process in the Department of Basic Education

English: The purpose of this study was to explore the pronouncements of gender and sexual diversity in the education policies within the education system. The study was largely motivated by the high levels of homophobic sentiments within schooling communities in South Africa. The assumption of this study is that there is no implementation of policy promoting the rights of gender and sexually diverse learners within the education system. This perceived lack of implementation has been a contentious human rights issue in South Africa. Both educators and parents have often marred the teaching of the gender and sexual diversity curriculum. Although mandated by legislation and policies, it has often been marred by moral and religious opposition. This has led to the exclusion of gender and sexual diversity content from the education curriculum. The absence of the content has resulted in the vilifying of gender and sexually diverse learners and educators in the schooling system. As such, the thesis explores the bottlenecks that exist within legislation as well as pertaining to curriculum and programme content that prevents the teaching of gender and sexually diversity education in South African schools. The study employed a qualitative research design by using semi-structured interviews to obtain in-depth data about the experiences of officials in the implementation of gender and sexual diversity content, as mandated by the Constitution of South Africa. The study was conducted with ten officials in the Department of Basic Education from both the national and provincial offices. Four officials were based at in the School Safety, Social Cohesion and Equity in Education Directorate, Education Management and Governance Development as well as from the Curriculum Directorate, respectively in the national office. The six provincial officials were Gender Focal Persons of the following provinces, Limpopo, Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, so designated by the Gender Equity Task Team recommendations of 1997. Through policy analysis and semi-structured interviews with officials responsible for the development and implementation of a gender and sexual diversity policy in the basic education system, the study explores institutional challenges as well as the social and power dynamics that exist in the implementation of policies in the schooling system. The findings point to silences within legislation of the education system on the implementation of gender and sexual diversity. This lack of clear pronouncement has implications on the mainstreaming of gender and sexually diverse content within policy and curriculum. As such, it creates a challenge for the protection of the rights and dignity of learners within schools, and the curbing of violence related to the lack of tolerance, as well as integration and cohesion within society.