An inside look at the process of diversity in a South African accounting department in recent decades

Abstract

At the end of apartheid in South Africa, universities had to diversify their student population. This autoethnography tells the story of one tertiary institution where the diversification process happened in a fair and transparent manner. Can lessons be learned from the way the institution (staff and students) implemented diversity? The purpose of this article is to contribute to accounting history, using a woman’s voice to recount and analyse challenges that the head of the accounting department faced in diversifying. Reflecting on the experiences helps to progress past the experience and provide an understanding of social capital harvested to enable diversification. The diversification process within the South African context is unique and contrasts to other diversity studies, as it focuses on the marginalisation and/or exclusion faced by a majority group when taken into a dominant minority group setting. This study has implications for those facing increased diversity in education due to globalisation.

Keywords

accounting history apartheid autoethnography diversification diversity female history social capital South Africa

Introduction

It is 2016 and, as I have been working overseas, a number of years have passed since I last set foot on South African soil. Driving to my destination on an early mid-winter evening, I experience a simultaneous attack on all five of my senses. I smell the familiar scent of wood fires burning and smoke hanging over the shacks¹ of Alexandra. Despite the cold, jubilant street vendors shout loudly to draw the attention of passing motorists and weave among busy traffic in an attempt to sell colourful African artefacts and trinkets. There are also beggars, one of whom makes the familiar hand gesture to indicate his hunger. It saddens me. Given the official unemployment rate of 26.7 per cent (Trading Economics, 2016) in South Africa (SA), I know that many have no other choice but to beg. I am still thinking about this fact when the familiar taste of fear seeps into my mouth, as I am startled by a newspaper vendor slamming a newspaper with the headline ‘Chaos at Vaal University of Technology as students and police battle’ (Henderson, 2016) onto the car’s windscreen. A sense of déjà vu fills me as I remember the chaos at most South African tertiary campuses at the end of apartheid when the diversification process led to violent clashes between the different races in university residences (Suransky and Van der Merwe, 2014). I wonder why university campuses remain battle grounds 22 years after the end of apartheid. Why, after all these years, does a significant body of Black² students still perceive the conditions they encounter at South African university campuses to be less favourable than those enjoyed by their White counterparts (Suttner, 2016). I think back to one tertiary institution, TX, where the diversification process was managed in a fair and transparent manner during those turbulent times. Can lessons be learned, I wonder, from the way TX (its staff and student body) implemented diversity at the end of apartheid?

Suransky and Van der Merwe (2014) claim it is to be expected that ‘after centuries of colonial and apartheid rule in SA’, racial inequalities will still be visible in institutions (p. 593). Vincent (2008) suggests that to address the inequality, one should listen to the stories of these institutions in order to reveal the power relations at play.

This autoethnography recounts my story of how diversification was implemented in TX; however, as with any personal reflection, it is open to a variety of interpretations and others might choose to view the story differently. The story illuminates a series of events that occurred during a time of racial and gender diversification in a South African tertiary education setting. I draw on a journal I kept of events that unfolded in TX’s accounting department when I was the head of department (HOD). TX was chosen as a case study because it managed to significantly increase representation of its student population from 44 to 76 per cent Black students over a 3-year period (1994–1997).³ I analyse the process which in SA is referred to as racial diversification and juxtapose that analysis with my own experiences of gender discrimination. Soudien (2008) suggests that transparency is key to learning from a process of diversification and I endeavour to achieve that end by using autoethnography to penetrate more deeply into my own experiences and to share these experiences openly.

The description of the diversification process within the SA context is unique because it studies how a minority group was diversified in order to embrace a majority group. The legacy of apartheid and its impact on the majority uniquely contrasts diversity studies undertaken in SA with such studies elsewhere in the world, where the focus is usually on minority issues and the marginalisation and/or exclusion minority groups face at the hands of majority groups (Hurtado et al., 1998; Quaye and Harper, 2014).

At a functionalist level, this ethnography of diversification provides insights into how the process of diversification was undertaken at TX. Somewhat ambitiously, I use social capital (SC) theory to reflect on these experiences because changes in relationships are at the heart of diversification and because Bourdieu (1986) employs SC theory to understand not only the subtleties of power in relationships but also how this power dynamic shifts within and across generations. When describing my experiences, I use a SC framework to give an account of relationships that enabled or hindered successful diversification in TX’s accounting department.

In addition, this study makes further contributions to the literature. Unlike other research on apartheid and education (see, for example, Alexander and Tredoux, 2010; Cakal et al., 2011; Pattman, 2010) which has focused primarily on the experiences of the students, this study focuses on my experiences as an educator during the end of the apartheid period. Furthermore, few studies of apartheid focus on accounting and those that do tend to explore the experiences of chartered accountants (Hammond et al., 2007, 2009). Through its use of a woman’s voice, this study also adds to the history of accounting education. Mason and Zanish-Belcher (2007) indicate that women’s voices are generally unheard in documentary archival resources, and Ikin et al. (2012) indicate this lacuna is particularly evident in accounting. Finally, this study’s findings have implications for those grappling with increased diversity in education due to demographic changes in populations as a result of globalisation.

The first section of this study reviews the literature on diversity in tertiary education, particularly literature that pertains to the accounting sector. It then discusses SC theory before outlining autoethnography as a method to recount educational experiences with diversity. The context of the case is analysed to identify themes relevant to diversification, and the article concludes by providing practical insights and identifying possible future research opportunities.

Diversity in accounting education

Due to the relevance of diversity in this autoethnographic study, an overview of the dominant literature on diversification in education is given next. Beckham (2000) notes that research on diversity in SA requires elucidation of the term diversity because in the past, that term had been used to justify the creation of homelands under apartheid (Leibbrandt et al., 2000). The fact that the apartheid regime accentuated diversity of culture, language and race as justification for its policies of segregation meant that in the SA context, diversity also had a negative connotation (Cross, 2004). While globally diversity is associated with celebrating differences (Squires, 2005), in the SA context, diversity is ‘aimed at embracing, or accommodating or engaging differences’ with a considerable emphasis on unity (Cross, 2004: 392). As the notion of diversity under apartheid was used to unilaterally create the African homelands which further robbed Black people of autonomous decision making over their movements, the term, according to Cross (2004), was also associated in the SA context with a loss of power. Cross (2004), therefore, adds another dimension to diversity in the SA context – that of power – and in so doing accentuates the point that, without power, diversity is meaningless.

Few researchers have specifically focused on diversity as it relates to accounting education in SA (Cross, 2004). Where diversity in tertiary education is discussed, it is usually in relation to race and ethnicity (Terenzini et al., 2001). Research into diversity in education by Gurin (1999), Peterson et al. (1999), Rendon (1996) and Sax (1996) has a predominantly quantitative focus; it calculates the numbers of different races represented on campuses. Studies conducted by Astin (1993), Hurtado (1999), Richard and Kirby (1999) and Knudsen (2013) investigate the effects of institutionally structured programmes designed to encourage racial diversity on tertiary campuses. A number of studies focusing on diversity concentrate on the benefits that can be achieved, such as improved racial knowledge and commitment to social justice (Milem et al., 2005), improved academic and social self-concepts (Astin, 1993), greater involvement in community service (Easterling and Rudell, 1997; Milem, 1994), and greater opportunities for academic research (Kulik and Roberson, 2008). Gurin et al. (2004) add a different dimension with their study of the benefits that diversity could achieve. They note, for example, that the benefits of diversity in education can be achieved only through integration and not merely through desegregation.

By distinguishing three distinct aspects of educational diversity, Gurin et al. (2003: 23) present the most comprehensive understanding of diversity in education. The first aspect, ‘structural diversity’, refers to the numbers of different races that are portrayed in a particular setting; the second, ‘informal interactional diversity’, is concerned with how diverse peers experience interactions in social settings; and the third, ‘classroom diversity’, relates to the sharing of cultural information in an official setting.

The majority of diversity studies begin from the standpoint that campuses are already diverse, and investigate the extent of the interactions between different races (Davis, 1994; Volet and Ang, 1998; Whitt et al., 1999). The current study differs from the existing literature in that it focuses on tertiary education at a point where, in the interests of fairness and justice, it had to move from a predominantly homogeneous (non-diverse) environment to a diverse one.

The theory of social capital

Gurin et al.’s (2003) definition describes diversity as not merely a numbers game, but also as being about interactions or relationships among people. Cross (2004) expands the notion of diversity in SA saying that, in that context, these relationships also need to involve power. The theory of SC focuses on relationships in society and Bourdieu (1986) is seen as one of the most influential figures in the theory’s development. Bourdieu uses SC to understand the subtleties of power in society and how this power dynamic shifts within and across generations. According to Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), SC is ‘the sum of resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (p. 119). Using Bourdieu’s theory of SC, Ikin et al. (2012) conjecture that ‘practices (actions which take place; the implementation of plans or acting-out of roles) are a product between an individual’s habitus … and the kind of resources (capital) individuals bring to the area or situation (the field)’ (p. 176). With its emphasis on relationships and power, Bourdieu’s theory of SC is well suited to frame this autoethnographic experience of diversity, as the academic literature indicates that diversity is also about relationships and power.

Bourdieu is not the only researcher to have a view on SC. Marx, according to Bryer (1993), offers a different view of SC. He describes capital formation as the result of the labour of society’s lower classes which, in a capitalist society, accrues to the upper classes. Bryer (2000, 2012, 2013) uses Marx’s view of SC to analyse and explain the history of accounting. When investigating the history of the English East India Company (EEIC), Bryer (2000) argues that SC is a product that emerged because of a common fate faced by the individual investors in the EEIC. According to Portes (2000), it is this view of SC that enabled investors in the EEIC, despite individual differences, to indicate their willingness to support one another’s initiatives. Portes (2000) argues that the SC created in the EEIC emerged not because of a ‘norm introjection during childhood’, nor because of an ‘accumulation of obligations from others according to the norm of reciprocity’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 7), but purely because of fate. In contrast to Portes, Bourdieu (1986) argues that building SC is dependent on habitus, or how the programming of one’s upbringing and socialisation means that individuals will act in a certain way (Bourdieu, 1990: 243). In this article, the views of both Bourdieu and Marx in relation to SC will be taken into account while recounting and reflecting on my experiences with diversity.

Research method

While employing a SC perspective (Bourdieu, 1986; Bryer, 2000, 2012, 2013), this article also uses a case study approach (Stake, 1995) and autoethnography (Dillon, 2012; Ellis, 2004, 2009; Power, 1991) to study my experiences as a female accounting educator implementing a policy of diversity at a tertiary institution in SA at the end of apartheid. This story encompasses all three elements of autoethnography as defined by Canagarajah (2012): it is presented from my own viewpoint and the study of my own experiences (‘auto’); it portrays how my experiences are perceived as socially constructed (‘ethno’); and, finally, while it shares my experiences, it does so in a story form (‘graphy’) (p. 260).

Prior studies of accounting history in SA are the work of external observers. For example, Hammond et al. (2007) recount the oral histories of Black chartered accountants, and Hammond et al. (2009) use a collection of oral histories to portray race relations in a public accounting firm during SA’s transition from apartheid. In using autoethnography, this article is unique, as it portrays my lived experience as an academic and my interpretation of the history of accounting education at the end of apartheid in SA. Venerating past experiences contributes to history because, as Hammond et al. (2007) argue, ‘in commemorating the past, we become engaged in the process of socially constructing history and collective memory’ and ‘this memory construction shapes the notions of fairness and equality’ for the future (p. 254).

Canagarajah (2012) indicates that autoethnography ‘values the self as a rich repository of experiences and perspectives that are not easily available under traditional approaches’, but also cautions that the method has constraints (p. 260). One such constraint, observed by Wamsted (2012: 192), is that one cannot always rely on the self to remember, interpret or portray matters as they occurred, or even as one would have viewed them when they occurred (self-deception). Hence, there is a need to supplement one’s thoughts with other materials. This study, therefore, relies on related source materials (newsletters, technical journals) from the period of recollection as a means of supplementing what I had written in my journal at the time. As these journal entries were originally written in my mother tongue, Afrikaans, they have been translated into English. (While both the quotations from my journal and my reflections are shown in italics, the journal entries are differentiated from the reflections by signposting the journal entries with the phrase ‘extract from my diary’.)

In Wamsted’s (2012) opinion, supplementing an autoethnography with narrative mining will help to provide an indication of what lay beneath the surface. In recounting the diversity process, I, therefore, first provide indicators of the woman I might have been when I was responsible for introducing diversity at TX’s accounting department. Providing an indication of the person I might have been will, it is hoped, also address some of the criticism laid at the door of White authors when they write about apartheid history. Through this autoethnography, I also reflect on my experiences in order to progress past the experience and thus provide understanding of how harvesting SC enabled the process of diversification.

The story

Before I recount my story, clarification is required about the timelines of SA accounting education to which this story relates. Boddy-Evans (2015) divides the historical phases of accounting education in SA into three distinct timelines: the period before the end of apartheid in 1994 (which will hereafter be referred to as Endings), the 5-year period surrounding the end of apartheid 1994–1999 (Transition) and the period since 1999 (New Beginnings). This autoethnography will focus primarily on Transition as this is the period during which concrete measures to diversify education were introduced. However, to assist with narrative mining of my recollected experiences during Transition, relevant aspects that influenced me during Endings will first be discussed.

Endings

I grew up in SA at the height of apartheid (1961–1975) and am classified as White (see endnote 2) even though my skin colour is not white, but olive. Under apartheid, Afrikaans (my mother tongue) was considered the language of the oppressor (Johnson, 2007). I was born soon after one of the worst human rights atrocities committed during apartheid – the 1960 Sharpeville massacre (Frankel, 2001). At Sharpeville, 69 Black people were killed when they protested against carrying a document, referred to as a ‘pass’, aimed at regulating and controlling their movement and employment. The events at Sharpeville prompted the SA government to impose a state of emergency and to ban the African National Congress and Pan-African Congress which, up until then, had aimed to bring about change without armed force (Terreblanche, 2002). Among White South Africans, my family was seen as a lower middle-class family and I was one of the first generation in my family to attend university, an activity I had to finance through a teaching bursary, as accounting firms did not offer bursaries to female students at that time.

Unlike the majority of my peers’ mothers, my mother worked all through my childhood, leaving me in the capable hands of R, a Coloured (see endnote 2) woman classified in apartheid SA as Non-White. Despite being lower middle class, my parents could afford to employ R as a domestic worker who also acted as my live-in nanny because of the limited job opportunities available and the very low wages that were paid to domestic workers (Gaitskell et al., 1983) at the time:

My first recollection of apartheid is in 1966, as a five-year old accompanying my father and R in our old yellow Volkswagen Beetle en route to R’s closest bus stop, approximately 3 kms from our home. Most domestic workers walk the long distance after completing a day of domestic chores, but my father insists on driving R to the bus stop by car. R went to her own home only on weekends, catching three buses in a two hour journey. At the bus stop I tried to bid R farewell in the customary Afrikaans way, with a kiss. My father was furious and R tried her best to avoid the kiss. At home I was severely reprimanded and told that the police would lock me up if I was caught kissing a Coloured person. I was confused, asking my parents ‘why is she seen as Coloured if our skin colours look the same’. I do not understand their reaction because I had only ever seen them treat R with respect.

Widespread poverty existed among Black people owing to discriminatory policies escalated by the Nationalist Party’s (NP) victory in 1948, which meant that very few Black people owned cars (Terreblanche, 2002). These discriminatory policies forced the majority of Black people into menial jobs in the White suburbs (domestic work, gardening) far from bus stops for buses that were designated to transport Black people. Residences for Black people were far from their places of employment as the former Groups Areas Act (abolished in 1994) had forced ‘people of different races to live in separate residential areas’ (Prinsloo and Cloete, 2002: 264). People classified as Coloured⁴ often had skin colour as light as that of ‘Whites’ and even at a young age, I, with my skin tone darker than that of R, subconsciously noticed the absurdity of a system dividing people based on the colour of their skin.

I recall that I felt annoyed with R not wanting to acknowledge my obvious love for her as a child, but also deeply humiliated and totally disempowered by my father’s reaction to this event. This early experience changed my life as it started me on a path to questioning the system of apartheid:

June 1976. I am 13 years old and in my first year at high school. R calls me to the kitchen a few minutes before supper time and turns her back on me as I open the warming drawer of the oven to take out some French fries she has just prepared. As her closest companion in our household, R gives me the privilege of sampling the fries before anyone else. This established ritual usually leads to R calling my mother with ‘Madam, come look – Choppa (her nickname for me) is again stealing the fries’. My mother usually plays along and mock scolds me. But today, R is different – sad. I notice her wiping a tear as she reads her Drum magazine, while waiting for more potatoes to fry. I ask ‘What’s wrong, R?’ She silently gestures to pictures in her magazine. I look and see pictures of death and destruction, images of student bodies scattered over a dirt road. Suddenly the warm fries taste vile in my mouth. These are not the pictures I saw of the 1976 Soweto uprisings in my parents’ newspaper. R turns to me and says: ‘Choppa, your people are killing my people’.

The 1976 attack on the Soweto Uprising signified another major human rights atrocity under apartheid (Terreblanche, 2002). A peaceful protest of unarmed school children forced to study in Afrikaans turned violent when police opened fire. The official figures of the number of students killed are unconfirmed but conservatively stated at 170. Ndlovu (2006) notes that while authors have differing views as to what factors caused the uprising, this event can be seen as the beginning of the end of apartheid. The iconic picture of Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying a young Hector Pieterson (Simbao, 2007) accompanied by Hector’s distraught sister after he had been killed by a police bullet made world headlines. However, this picture is not what I recall about the Soweto Uprising. Rather, it is those other pictures of death and destruction, the images in the Drum taken by Alfred Kumalo (Swift, 1991: 37) of student bodies scattered over a dirt road that are etched in my mind forever.

I recall throughout my adolescence in the 1970s arguing with peers, siblings and sometimes adults about apartheid. Much to my parent’s embarrassment, they were summoned to the principal’s office in 1979 because of the ‘extreme views’ I expressed at a South African Bureau of Race Relations (SABRA) youth camp. SABRA, as Evans (1997) writes, made an ‘“altruistic” case for genuine development in the reserves’ (p. 223). I naively asked, ‘Why do we need reserves?’ My mother, who had her hopes pinned on her daughter going to university and wished me a life of prosperity, begged me to stop with the ‘politics’, and so I was persuaded to follow a non-political career as an accountant. When studying accounting at university in 1980, I encountered only White students. I clashed vehemently about apartheid with young White male students who had already completed their conscripted military service which they commenced at the age of 18 or once they left school. These arguments made me feel very alone in the circles I moved in, especially as most accounting students were totally uninterested in discussions on politics. Their aim was to make money. During this period compulsory conscription entailed two years military service and after basic training involved either fighting in the Angolan Bush War against the ‘Rooi Gevaar’ (The Red Danger) and, by implication communism and Umkhonto we Ziswe (MK), the military arm of the African National Congress (Terreblanche, 2002: 103), or in the 1980s, maintaining peace in the Black townships. In 1982, after completing my accounting degree, and when many of my fellow male students (who decided to delay their military service until after their university studies) had to go to war, I commenced work at an auditing firm. Here, as only the second female employed among 23 men, I had my first personal experiences in the work place with a different type of discrimination, discrimination based on gender.

I have often questioned why I was able to put my love for my mother above my own deep-rooted feelings of disgust with a system I knew to be unfair. On reflection, I now realise I showed no understanding of White male students who, although not oppressed, were also victims of the system of discrimination. McMohan et al. (2007) explain that ‘conscription robbed them of freedom of choice and conscience’.

The brief account offered here of growing up in a fair, yet not liberal, home, mixed with my childhood, university and early work experiences during Endings creates my habitus and it is this habitus that I brought to the field (Institution TX) when I commenced work as an academic staff member in 1989. Although my further experience at TX was to prove otherwise, in 1989, I believed that I understood the injustices of apartheid.

Endings in the field (TX)

The population of TX consisted of 12,275 students and 1,200 staff members. In 1989, the accounting department employed 12 White lecturers only two of whom were female (and none were Black or Coloured). During Endings, the majority of the student population was White, and where Black students were enrolled in classes, they had been sponsored by employers (such as the mining houses) in order to qualify for the ministerial permit to attend a White educational institution (explained below). The context in which TX operated was deeply rooted in the system of apartheid. That context, thus, warrants discussion, as it is within this field that the actions (practices) taken by me (as HOD), given my habitus, are analysed through an SC lens.

While the racial and gender discriminatory character of tertiary education in SA originated in colonialism (Marcum, 1982), the practices were informally upheld, then formalised when the Extension of University Education Act of 1959 was passed by the apartheid government (Terreblanche, 2002). This 1959 Act restricted entry to universities according to race and ‘effectively closed White universities to Black students and began the establishment of separate tertiary institutions for Blacks, as it aimed to extend [sic] government control both over administrative structures and curricula’ (Christie and Collins, 1982: 67). Students would be allowed to study at historically White institutions only with a permit from the Minister of Education, and only if they could prove that the historically Black institutions did not offer the qualification they sought (Govinder et al., 2013). Although not all universities (Academic Freedom Committees, 1957) supported this Act, all tertiary institutions were forced to abide by it. The 1959 Act was however amended in 1983 to allow the appropriate Minister to impose a quota limit on the number of Black students admitted to a White institution (Reddy, 2004). By 1983, only 954 Black, 1,255 Coloured and 1,323 Indian students were allowed to study at White residential institutions, out of a population of 29.72 million, of which 17.4 million were Black (Ratcatcher, 2012). In 1991 the ruling party scrapped the last remaining provisions in the law that allowed the government to restrict university admission on racial grounds.

In 1980, the apartheid government, believing that educational institutions were instruments of the state, ‘further fragmented the racially divided higher education system’ (Bunting, 2004: 36) by splitting tertiary institutions according to ideology (similar to the race ideology) based on ‘essence’. The split resulted in a two-tier discriminatory system where universities, with their ‘essence of science’ were regarded as superior to technikons (technikon is the Afrikaans term for a university of technology), the essence of which was deemed to be technology (Bunting, 2004). One result of this division related to the recognition of qualifications by professional bodies. TX as a technikon would not receive any recognition for its accounting qualifications from the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) as they recognised only those of universities.

During the last years of Endings in 1992 in a Whites-only referendum, 68.73 per cent of the electorate would vote in favour of political power-sharing with Black people (Terreblanche, 2002). President Nelson Mandela (1994) was freed after spending 27 years in jail in opposition to apartheid and was democratically elected as president of SA. These events would impact TX, which up to this point as a White institution had been operating under an educational system of apartheid.

Transition

The autoethnography recounted during Transition is broadly framed within the contextual themes of external (i.e. legislative) and internal (i.e. the environment within TX) factors impacting the process of diversity during this time.

External factors impacting the process of diversity

In the interest of fairness and justice in combating education’s legacy of apartheid, three pieces of legislation were formulated during Transition that would impact the delivery of accounting education (Cross, 2004). They are the South African Qualifications Act (SAQA) (1995), The Higher Education Act (1997) and the Labour Trio (Terreblanche, 2002).

The SAQA Act (1995) was primarily aimed at the development and implementation of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), whereby all qualifications in SA had to be registered and benchmarked as national qualifications in a specific outcomes-based format. This philosophy included commitment to a process of lifelong learning, learning pathways and the recognition of prior learning (RPL). This Act enabled standardised recognition of TX qualifications, according to a national scale. The aims of the Higher Education Act were to regulate tertiary education, funding of higher education institutions, the registration of higher education institutions and to promote quality within these institutions (Kallaway, 1997).

The Labour Trio was in essence three further pieces of legislation: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (1997), the Employment Equity Act (EEA) (1998) and the Skills Development Act (1998) which was also introduced in order to encourage specific skills and to set conditions in the work place. A payroll levy, which would be pooled to train people, was imposed on commerce and industry.

The Acts promulgated to combat the legacy of apartheid created significant opportunities for education and training in SA. The Labour Trio also meant that the TX staff profile had to be diversified from being all White. Decades of severe educational inequality and racist institutional structures had to be overcome so that Black people could take up positions as lecturers and managers. In terms of the Employment Equity Act (1998), organisations would be required to report back to government at regular intervals on the numbers of equity staff appointed. This numerical representation of diverse groups (both staff and students) on campus is in line with what Gurin et al. (2003) describe as the first basic understanding of diversity (i.e. achieving structural diversity).

Extract from my diary 1997:

I have been reappointed to serve a five-year term as Head of Department. All of the White male colleagues that I have worked with during the past years as the only female HOD have been replaced with people representing equity. Many of these male colleagues are angry, and call me a traitor or worse. I can’t even write the word down in my own diary as it fills me with disgust. It may be harsh but I am not sad about them, even though I had worked very hard to gain their acceptance and build close networks with these HODs. Honestly, I feel I owe them no loyalty. They did not show me any loyalty when I stumbled over the pay slip left on the photo copier (3 years after my first appointment as HOD in 1990) [sic] and discovered on enquiry with Human Resources, that not only were they paid more than me, but that I did not receive the fringe benefits, car allowance and housing subsidy they all did. Mr. X (HOD of another academic department) even asked me why I should get these fringe benefits because as a married woman my husband probably gets some fringe benefits at his work and that would not be fair to the male HODs who are mostly sole breadwinners. When I complained, the CFO of TX even accusingly said that I should not be so greedy. What about fairness to me? What about receiving the equal pay for the same job? I am working harder than anyone else – I don’t take time off to go and play golf. Not a single one of them was on my side then. I had to fight my battles with TX authorities about remuneration alone. Everyone I personally approached to ask for support either said they did not agree with me or that they did not want to be seen to challenge TX authorities during these turbulent times, because they could become a target for pending employment equity legislation. Even when I won the battle, I did not receive compensation for what I had lost in the 3 years, just an agreement to correct it in the future.

In light of the EEA, TX changed its terms of appointment for HODs. As a result, all HODs, together with other interested parties, were required to reapply for the HOD positions. HOD positions had initially been permanent appointments made from within academic faculty and with no defined termination. Top management had strategically targeted the HODs as an easy, less risky and effective way to bring about diversity in the management of TX. Easy, in the sense that it affected a very small group (eight people). Less risky, in the sense that if any legal action flowed from this change, the organisation would be able to financially manage the fallout! Effective, in the sense that appointing equity staff (Black or White females) as HODs would not only help TX achieve structural diversity (Gurin et al., 2003) but could also strategically influence race perceptions where it mattered, or as Gurin et al. (2003) indicated, advance informal interactional diversity. These actions taken by TX, given my habitus, made sense to me in terms of their fairness in providing all parts of society with opportunities. These measures were, however, initially met with resentment, denial and anger on the part of a number of existing department heads. Acceptance of operating under new rules and under a new government finally set in after two HODs consulted with lawyers and realised that it would not be financially viable to fight the matter in the courts and that doing so would also hamper their opportunities to take up positions as non-management academic staff.

Looking back at the diary entry cited above, my reaction to the plight of male HODs during Transition appears, on the surface, very distant and cold and it could easily be suggested that as a female HOD, I probably had better odds of being reappointed as a HOD than they did. Worse, I may have felt vindicated because I had struggled on my own with gender discrimination regarding remuneration. Viewing this experience through an SC lens, I believed, because of my networks with male HODs, that I owned SC, in a Bourdieuvian sense, and that I had amassed SC which I could draw on in times of need. Yet, when I had faced gender discrimination, no male colleague had supported me. The SC that existed among the HODs was more akin to SC in a Marxist sense: the kind Portes (2000) indicates exists because of a shared common fate of diversity. Male HODs needed to show that they had diversified and my gender was useful for this purpose.

The 1994 election emphasised the fact that all facets of society would have to diversify. Tertiary institutions, as autonomous entities, were left to self-regulate their transformation. (Govinder et al., 2013). The traditional historically White Afrikaans tertiary institutions were particularly slow to react (Suransky and Van der Merwe, 2014). Govinder et al. (2013) also observe this tardiness, saying that equity indicators for both staff and students at the ‘traditional, “previously advantaged” universities’ nearly 20 years after the end of apartheid ‘show that transformation is not only painfully slow but also embarrassingly so’ (p. 9). The executive leadership and administration of TX, a dual medium (Afrikaans and English) institution, strategically embarked on diversification as they wanted to be proactive and not wait until pending legislation would force them to act. The operational practice of how diversity would have to be implemented was left to each HOD and department. Although all the HODs and senior level management experienced anxiety and pressure, as Head of the Accounting Department, I felt particularly pressured. This pressure can be ascribed mainly to two factors: the first was the lack of availability of Black faculty; and the second was the lack of success achieved by Black students when they embarked on accounting qualifications. (The latter aspect is discussed in greater detail under internal factors).

Extract from my diary May 1994:

Today I was stumped. I interviewed a chartered accountant this morning who would greatly enhance the Department’s profile and assist in achieving equity. His opening sentence was: ‘Before I waste your and my time, what is your maximum salary?’ His response to disclosure of the salary was ‘if that is the case, let’s end the interview right now as it is approximately 60% of the offer made by the previous organisation, which I declined’.

Neumann (2002) indicates that legislation without policy creates feelings of anxiety, a fact I soon realised when attempting to change the staff profile in line with the upcoming EEA. Very few qualified Black accountants existed in SA in the early 1990s and, even as late 2000, Hammond et al. (2009) observed ‘a mere 1% of all chartered accountants’ were Black (p. 706). Huge expectations and demands for salaries, in addition to a shortage of qualified Black accountants, meant that TX could not employ them. The lack of recognition of TX accounting qualifications by the SAICA also meant SAICA’s ‘direct subsidies (called subventions) of academic salaries’ (Retief-Venter and De Villiers, 2013: 1225) were not available for use in attracting Black staff members. Struggling to attract Black chartered accountants, I decided to establish a network with the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of South Africa (ABASA).

The following extract comes from my June 1994 diary and it was written after attending an ABASA meeting in the Central Business District (CBD) of Johannesburg:

I am surprised at how welcoming ABASA is; I thought they would shun or ignore me – after all, up until now, they have very much been ignored as a professional accounting group. Even as a so-called liberal I am stunned at their warmth and capacity to forgive.

A plan was forged between TX and ABASA to identify Black secondary school accounting teachers (who were members of ABASA). These people were provided with opportunities and support so that they could develop their qualifications while taking on tutoring positions at TX. As a thank-you for my work with ABASA, I was invited to their year-end function.

Diary extract December 1994:

I am struggling with this decision to attend the year-end function of ABASA as I know I will be one of only two White people to attend. I know I am being ridiculous. The function is being held in a very posh part of Pretoria. It’s not like I have to go in to the Township. Why am I scared?

While the entry in my diary was written during a period of significant unrest in the Black townships, using this reason to explain my fear would be too simple. Reflecting on this entry, I cannot help but notice how entrenched the division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ was, even in someone who claimed to harbour no racist feelings. This incident also illustrated that although efforts towards achieving structural diversity were progressing, the real challenges were presented by informal interactional diversity (Gurin, 2003). Looking through a SC lens, it is clear that the networks I had established with ABASA by creating SC in a Bourdieuvian sense had enabled me to access a pool of people I might otherwise never have been able to reach. This incident also illustrates the subtleties of power in society in that it shows how this power dynamic shifted when I felt that, as a member of a minority race, I no longer had power in the ABASA social setting, as opposed to my perceived power as HOD in a professional setting.

By June 1998, the first two Black staff members attracted from secondary teaching joined the accounting department of TX. These candidates had indicated that they were interested in upskilling their basic teaching diplomas into fully fledged accounting degrees. Their upskilling encompassed 1 year of accounting. I was slightly disappointed that only two teachers were interested in taking up the TX–ABASA initiative. Unfortunately, after discussing this option with some teachers, they indicated that the apartheid policy of inferior education for Black students, especially in mathematics (Terreblanche, 2002), meant that teachers felt challenged in taking up further studies in accounting. During a discussion with one new staff member (Mr G), he indicated that although the White staff members were friendly, he felt left out of their casual conversations. It was clear that although the majority of staff in the Department had accepted structural diversity, informal interactional diversity did not happen. Concrete plans were made to harness the SC that existed among staff in the department (including Mr G) so that they all worked towards the same goal – to see diversity succeed. The strategy resulted in informal lunches involving three to five staff members, forming teams to play darts in the tearoom, and inviting speakers to teach us about different African cultures (including the Afrikaans culture) and the value of cultural diversity. These became monthly events in the department. None of these events was compulsory, but a large majority of the staff members participated in them and confirmed what Gurin, Nagda and Lopez (2004) observed (i.e. that diversity only happens through integration and not merely through desegregation).

Not all staff members were comfortable with the changes and the EEA, in particular, created significant anxiety among some White male staff, as I learned from a conversation with Mr Q early in 1997:

I was kicked out of my work in commerce because of employment equity, and then I came to TX so how long before you kick me out?

Thinking back on these experiences makes me feel ashamed, as I have to admit that I showed no empathy for this staff member’s situation. I took a very hard line and indicated that he either got on board or considered finding other employment. Not long after, Mr Q handed in his resignation. Relieved to be rid of what I deemed a problem, I never enquired where he would be going. I knew that there would be redundant White males in the market, who would be very capable and willing to replace staff members on a temporary basis. In hindsight, I still do not know whether it was my lack of experience as a young manager, or my disgust with the system of apartheid, or my ego, in terms of feeling that I had made a difference, that drove my reaction to this staff member. During Transition, TX never retrenched any of its White staff members. It did, however, employ a policy whereby if staff members resigned or retired, they had to be replaced with people representing equity. Early voluntary retirement also became an option for staff over the age of 55. If Black staff could not be found, faculty positions could be temporarily filled by White male applicants.

Internal factors impacting the diversity process

As in most tertiary institutions that embraced diversity, measures were taken at TX to encourage enrolment of Black students. While structural diversity at TX was achieved relatively quickly, it was not without internal challenges. Three types of challenges can be identified: access and progression, the social and psychological dimensions of the learning environment, and aspirations and career choices.

Access and progression

The ratio of student applicants compared to available places in accounting was much lower than the ratios in other departments. Terreblanche (2002) attributes this lack of applicants to the shortcomings of SA Black primary and secondary education system, which had a lack of facilities; insufficiently qualified teachers, especially in mathematics, accountancy and science; and inadequate numbers of textbooks. Harnessing SC created through relationships with ABASA, the accounting winter school community project was initiated to tackle the root of the problem (Pulse, 1994). This community project, a professional development opportunity, was aimed at improving the accounting knowledge of accounting teachers from TX feeder schools, so that they in turn would be able to improve the skills of potential accounting students. Volunteers from the accounting department staff gave freely of their time (outside of faculty teaching time) to instruct teachers in the latest accounting techniques. The teachers were brought to TX campus by bus, with the cost being sponsored by top management. After successful completion of the project, teachers received a continued professional development certificate from TX.

Diary extract July 1994:

I kissed teacher X on the cheek to congratulate her on achieving her certificate. The group fell silent. Then the photographer (a Black man) asked if I would do it again as he had never before seen a White person kissing a Black person. We still have so much to learn.

Reflecting on this entry, I realised that I had come full circle, and finally been absolved from the shame and anxiety I was made to feel at trying to kiss a Black person as a child many years ago. On this day, the kiss was seen as a gesture of goodwill by both parties. From a SC perspective, the sharing of a common fate by both TX staff and secondary school teachers in needing to improve the capabilities of school leavers created SC that could be harnessed to successfully implement this programme.

Challenges also extended to managing diverse cultures within the classroom (Gurin et al., 2003). Workload for teaching staff increased, as lecturers needed additional time to supply detailed notes. Owing to widespread poverty among the students, textbooks were unaffordable.

Language instruction was changed to a single medium (English) as top management believed that this would accommodate all students, but this move presented its own challenges. First, the majority of Afrikaans-speaking students left to attend the remaining institutions that used Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. While the Black students could understand English, very few had a clear command of the language and they experienced problems understanding teachers’ accents and speech patterns. Likewise, the majority of lecturers found themselves completely lost when trying to follow communication among students during classroom discussions when students invariably reverted to their home language (often not English). The issue of language (SA has 11 official languages) encompassed more than just the spoken word. One of the male lecturers remarked that diversity had made him lose his sense of humour as he no longer knew how to be funny in class. Lecturers who often used humour in the classroom to ‘break the ice’ found that as they and the students came from such diverse back grounds (affluent suburbs to shacks in Soweto), they did not necessarily share the same humour. White male lecturers would humorously refer to incidents that happened on the rugby field, and the majority of Black students, who viewed rugby as a game of the oppressors, could not identify with this.

In an effort to address the endemic nature of discrimination (Hébert, 2001), programmes were introduced to teach accounting staff some Zulu. This strategy again created SC which could be used to foster relationships. Both staff and students shared a common fate in understanding how difficult it can be to learn in a different language.

Another challenge presented itself in the form of technology, as the majority of Black students had never previously been exposed to computer technology. These students came from a background where many did not have running water or electricity in their homes, yet were now expected to use computers. Computer rooms were opened during lunch breaks and after hours to allow students to become familiar with the technology. While this strategy meant longer hours for staff, top management were keen to ensure lasting diversity and employed additional helpers in the form of senior students to assist staff in the library and computer labs.

Social and psychological dimensions of the learning environment

Challenges presenting the social and psychological dimension of the learning environment took on various forms, one being students’ living conditions. The majority of TX accounting students lived in informal settlements in which 10 or more family members often shared a one-bedroom house. This arrangement left little room for quiet study. With no electricity, students had to use the dim light of candles or street lamps to complete homework. In an effort to attempt to address this problem, accounting staff petitioned for the library and student cafeteria to stay open after hours and TX employed additional senior student assistants.

Transport to and from TX created problems. Unlike their White counterparts, Black students lived in informal settlements far from campus and had to rely on public transport, which meant students often turned up late to class. One of the lecturers remarked that she had spoken to one of the students about this problem; his response was that ‘the bus had left him’. Seeing it as her duty to educate the student, she corrected his language stating that he had missed the bus and needed to wake up earlier. The student replied that he took the earliest possible bus, but that the demand for transport far outweighed the supply and, that when the bus was full, it left. Given my habitus, [I realised] I was woefully ignorant of the consequences of apartheid. As a strategy to allow students sufficient time to get to the campus, classes were rescheduled to start much later.

Widespread poverty also meant students often did not have enough money to study. Moreover, neither they nor their parents qualified for credit to obtain student loans. Students often entered TX with only enough money to pay the application fee (which they had borrowed from friends and family). As HOD, one of my duties required me to follow up on non-paying students. On one such occasion, a student responded very late into the academic year saying that she was not ‘due for pay yet’; this time I corrected her English stating that she probably meant ‘due to pay’. She shook her head at my correction and indicated that she would only receive her money from the stokvel⁵ to pay her fees at the end of the academic year.

At that time, stokvels were often used to make money available for studies. A stokvel consisted of a group of people who would each contribute a monthly amount and each month one person could access the total amount to fund their studies. The stokvel was a means of harnessing existing networks among underprivileged people to afford them power (in the form of access to funds).

Consultation with top management ensued and students were allowed to pay their fees in small amounts throughout the year, with no interest charged on late payments. As TX received money in tranches from the SA government, TX negotiated more frequent tranches based on commitments signed by students to pay their student fees. The SA government also worked with the major banks to introduce low interest loans for students.

Lack of money had impacts beyond just student fees and textbooks. One morning in 1995, a visibly upset lecturer recounted the following:

A student had fainted in her class and when he came to, after making sure he was okay, she said to him that he should remember to eat breakfast before he comes to class. His unemotional reply was ‘Miss, it’s not my day to eat’.

I realised that my habitus did not equip me with a real understanding of the extent of the atrocities caused by apartheid. I also realised how much value Black students placed on education as a way out of poverty – to the extent that they would sacrifice their own health to attend class.

While this matter became the subject of discussion in the higher echelons of the university, a number of accounting staff decided to act immediately and began taking apples to class. These were handed out in response to easily answered questions so as not to embarrass anyone.

Black students also lacked basic financial literacy, as they had not seen cheque books or bank accounts in their homes. Explaining how to complete bank reconciliations, do cash receipts or payments journals under these circumstances required a different pedagogical approach. Many of the accounting staff took students into banks or brought forms such as deposit slips and cheques to class to illustrate practically how to complete these. While not all students experienced all the issues at the same time, these examples represent some of the challenges faced over the period.

Aspirations and career choices

The Labour Trio, which intended to improve students’ chances of employment, did not deliver immediate results. Despite their aspirations and career choices, students generally experienced difficulty in securing employment after completing qualifications at TX. This problem could be attributed to a number of factors.

Students had poor social communication and were, therefore, unable to market themselves despite having good academic grades. Students also lived far from relevant employment opportunities and had limited access to transport. For most private accounting practices in SA, employees are required to have a driver’s licence and a vehicle (Yuen, 1996).

The lack of a professional accounting body that students who qualified from TX could belong to – a result of SAICA’s non-recognition of TX accounting qualifications – further restricted opportunities for TX students. Access to professional body accreditation has always been important for accounting qualifications because, as Evans (2010) identified, ‘if a course of study in accounting is accredited that signals that the graduate meets the educational requirements for entry’ to the professional body, which, in turn, governs the work environment of accountants (p. 80). I decided to rely, as far as I could, on my own and the accounting department’s networks to harness as much SC as we individually and collectively possessed in order to establish a base for accounting students with TX qualifications. I found a home for TX accounting students at the Institute of Commercial and Financial Accountants (ICFA), which promoted racial diversity by giving equal recognition to technikon and university accounting qualifications.

In order to address some of the challenges, staff and students worked together to introduce a number of initiatives. One initiative, a mentorship programme, forged networks with small accounting practitioners to create trainee opportunities for TX accounting students. Significant goodwill existed among staff and students in terms of their desire to see diversity succeed. Ten TX accounting staff, who had formerly worked in private practice, volunteered to serve as unpaid mentors for these students during their vacation work in the small accounting practices. The fact that the volunteer mentors had all formerly worked in accounting practice contributed to the success of the programme as they could not only relate to students’ anxieties but could also often pre-empt potential difficulties. This programme created a safe environment for both students and practitioners. Although not all students chose to participate in the 1997 mentorship programme (as students had to sacrifice holiday time), 25 of the 28 who did participate found employment that would commence at the beginning of 1998. Practitioners had the opportunity to determine the capability of the students and this helped to dispel some of their prejudices. Students had the opportunity to be mentored into what could possibly turn out to be their first job. In another initiative, a driving instructor was brought onto the TX campus so that students could receive driving lessons in between classes at minimal cost.

However, not all endeavours, no matter how well-intentioned, were successful. A diary entry reads,

Extract from my diary 1997:

At yesterday’s small practitioner mentorship event, one of the practitioners after the event stuffed a lecturer’s suit pockets full of leftover food saying that he must be hungry as he is Black.

Students appeared to have their own personal challenges too. In mid-1995, a well-performing White student indicated that he wanted to withdraw from his studies. On enquiring about his reason, he responded that he could no longer share a classroom with people who had killed his only brother in the Bush War. I did not try to convince him to remain, as I realised that there are some wounds that take a long time to heal.

Problems also surfaced when, at the end of 1997, more graduates started to look for work opportunities. One challenge was unrealistic expectations about salaries when entering the job market. One factor influencing the high expectation with regard to starting salaries was the financial commitments the students had undertaken in the form of study loans. Monthly presentations by employment agencies banks on managing finances were implemented with the next graduating group in 1998 as a way to address these challenges.

Conclusion

This autoethnography presents an example of how diversity was practised in an accounting department at the end of apartheid with the aim of obtaining insight from that process. The article outlines that the process was impacted on a functionalist level by external (legislative) and internal factors including access and progression, social and psychological dimensions of the learning environment, and aspirations and career choices. In recounting my experience with the process from the perspective of a female HOD, this study finds that a strong proactive stance by top management, which included actions to totally reconstruct the institution’s middle management, helped to kick-start the process even before new legislation necessitated such change. This first move towards diversity created power for the new HODs. The diversity initiatives were left to the departments and happened in a haphazard way. Originally, initiatives to attract Black staff and students into the accounting department were aimed at achieving structural diversity. The scarcity of qualified Black accountants and the poor success rate of accounting students showed that interventions were required. The interventions taken were planned around networks available to TX and created improved structural diversity within the department. However, the initiatives also illustrated the lack of both informal interactional and classroom diversity. Measures in the form of mentorship programmes, social gatherings and structured programmes on culture and language were introduced and confirmed that the idea of integration, and not merely desegregation, is important in achieving diversity.

Viewing the diversity process through an SC lens shows that different types of SC were harnessed throughout the process. While legislation mandated diversity, my own experiences of discrimination stemming from my habitus (norm interjection from childhood) and the TX field created SC which I used to drive diversity in the department.

The internal challenges that Black students faced, and which were revealed in the process, can also be summarised as a lack of SC on their part when compared to that of their White counterparts. This absence of SC is embodied in the fact that these students did not have educated family or friends who were able to provide advice or networks for employment. Neither did they have familiarity with computers in the home, nor a family culture of educational success nor even a physical home environment that was beneficial for achieving success.

While some staff wanted to implement diversity in the interest of fairness and justice, a fair portion of staff saw diversity as a legislative requirement which they had to adhere to for their own survival. Students wanted to see diversity succeed, as it would also be in their interest and would create the opportunities they never had under apartheid. In this sense, both staff and students shared a common goal which created SC. The resultant SC could be pooled to peacefully create diversity within a non-diverse group at TX. Staff also transferred SC created through their own networks with small accounting practitioners to students through the mentorship programme.

When diversity had largely been implemented at TX, the common goal, however, no longer existed and the SC created did not last. While there have been some success stories in individual departments, recent disruptions in tertiary education in SA suggest that too much focus was placed at the end of apartheid on structural diversity and too little emphasis on informal interactional and classroom diversity. Focusing on the latter two types of diversity could create SC of the kind that Bourdieu (1986) refers to, where networks are built not just because of a shared common fate, but because of change in habitus.

This autoethnography is the historic recollection of my experiences as HOD with one tertiary institution’s diversification process. Engaging in more recollections of this nature should help not only to build collective memory and reconstruct history to ensure notions of fairness and equality but also to overcome the limitation that this article represents only one person’s view.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author extends appreciation to Prof. James Guthrie and the anonymous reviewers for their contributions in developing and refining this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

Academic Freedom Committees (1957) The Open Universities of South Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa: Witwatersrand University Press.

Alexander

Tredoux

(2010) The spaces between us: A spatial analysis of informal segregation at a South African University. Journal of Social Issues 66(2): 367–386.

Astin

(1993) Diversity and multiculturalism on the campus: How are students affected? Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 25(2): 44–49.

Basic Conditions of Employment Act No. 75 of 1997, South Africa.

Beckham

(2000) Diversity, Democracy, and Higher Education: A View from Three Nations– India, South Africa, the United States. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities Press.

Boddy-Evans

(2015) When did apartheid end? Available at: http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheidfaq/f/HowEnded.htm

Bourdieu

(1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson

(ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 241–252.

Bourdieu

(1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu

Wacquant

(1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

10.

Bryer

(1993) The late nineteenth-century revolution in financial reporting: Accounting for the rise of investor or managerial capitalism? Accounting, Organizations and Society 18(7): 649–690.

11.

Bryer

(2000) The history of accounting and the transition to capitalism in England. Part one: Theory. Accounting, Organizations and Society 25(2): 131–162.

12.

Bryer

(2012) Americanism and financial accounting theory–Part 1: Was America born capitalist? Critical Perspectives on Accounting 23(7): 511–555.

13.

Bryer

(2013) Americanism and financial accounting theory–Part 2: The ‘modern business enterprise’, America’s transition to capitalism, and the genesis of management accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 24(4): 273–318.

14.

Bunting

(2004) The higher education landscape under apartheid. In: Cloete

Fehel

Maassen

Moja

Perold

Gibbon

(eds) Transformation in Higher Education Global Pressures and Local Realities in South Africa. The Netherlands: Kluwer Publishing, pp. 35–52.

15.

Cakal

Hewstone

Schwar

Heath

(2011) An investigation of the social identity model of collective action and the ‘sedative’ effect of intergroup contact among Black and White students in South Africa. British Journal of Social Psychology 50(4): 606–627.

16.

Canagarajah

(2012) Teacher development in a global profession: An autoethnography. Tesol Quarterly 46(2): 258–279.

17.

Christie

Collins

(1982) Bantu education: Apartheid ideology or labour reproduction? Comparative Education 18(1): 59–75.

18.

Cross

(2004) Institutionalising campus diversity in South African higher education: Review of diversity scholarship and diversity education. Higher Education 47(4): 387–410.

19.

Davis

(1994) College in Black and White: Campus environment and academic achievement of African American males. The Journal of Negro Education 63(4): 620–633.

20.

Dillon

(2012) Unbalanced: An autoethnography of fatherhood in academe. Journal of Family Communication 12(4): 284–299.

21.

Easterling

Rudell

(1997) Rationale, benefits, and methods of service-learning in marketing education. Journal of Education for Business 73(1): 58–61.

22.

Ellis

(2004) The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

23.

Ellis

(2009) Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

24.

Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998, South Africa.

25.

Evans

(2010) Jurisdictional disputes in accounting: Education or training. In: Evans

Burritt

Guthrie

(eds) Accounting Education at a Crossroad in 2010. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, pp. 80–89.

26.

Evans

(1997) Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa. Los Angeles, CA: California Press.

27.

Frankel

(2001) An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and its Massacre. Johannesburg, South Africa: Witwatersrand University Press.

28.

Gaitskell

Kimble

Maconachie

Unterhalter

(1983) Class, race and gender: Domestic workers in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy 10(27–28): 86–108.

29.

Govinder

Zondo

Makgoba

(2013) A new look at demographic transformation for universities in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 109(11–12): 1–11.

30.

Gurin

(1999) New research on the benefits of diversity in college and beyond: An empirical analysis. Diversity Digest 3(3): 5–15.

31.

Gurin

Dey

Gurin

Hurtado

(2003) How does racial/ethnic diversity promote education? Western Journal of Black Studies 27(1): 20–29.

32.

Gurin

Nagda

Lopez

(2004) The benefits of diversity in education for democratic citizenship. Journal of Social Issues 60(1): 17–34.

33.

Hammond

Arnold

Clayton

(2007) Recounting a difficult past: South African accounting firm’s ‘experiences in transformation’. Accounting History 12(3): 253–281.

34.

Hammond

Clayton

Arnold

(2009) South Africa’s transition from apartheid: The role of professional closure in the experiences of black chartered accountants. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34(6): 705–721.

35.

Hébert

(2001) Identity, diversity, and education: A critical review of the literature. Canadian Ethnic Studies 33(3): 155–177.

36.

Hemson

Singh

(2010) Shadows of transformation: Inclusion and exclusion of academic staff at a University of Technology. South African Journal of Higher Education 24(6): 935–952.

37.

Henderson

(2016) Chaos at Vaal University of Technology as students and police battle. Business Day, 12 May. Available at: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2016/05/12/Chaos-at-Vaal-University-of-Technology-as-students-and-police-battle

38.

Higher Education Act 1997, South Africa.

39.

Hurtado

(1999) Linking diversity and educational purpose: How the diversity of the faculty and student body impacts the classroom environment and student development. In: Orfield

(ed.) Diversity Challenged: Legal Crisis and New Evidence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Publishing Group, pp. 187–203.

40.

Hurtado

Clayton-Pedersen

Allen WR and Milem

(1998) Enhancing campus climates for racial/ethnic diversity: Educational policy and practice. Review of Higher Education 21(3): 279–302.

41.

Ikin

Johns

Hayes

(2012) Field, capital and habitus: An oral history of women in accounting in Australia during World War II. Accounting History 17(2): 175–192.

42.

Johnson

(2007) Building citizenship in fragmented societies: The challenges of deracialising and integrating schools in post-Apartheid South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development 27(3): 306–317.

43.

Kallaway

(1997) The restructuring of South African Education and Training in Comparative Context. In: Kallaway

Kruss

Fataar

Donn

(eds) Education after Apartheid: South African Education in Transition. Rondebosch, South Africa: University of Cape Town Press, pp. 50–76.

44.

Knudsen

(2013) The integration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into business activities: Can lessons be learnt from gender diversity programmes? International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics 8(3): 210–223.

45.

Kulik

Roberson

(2008) Common goals and golden opportunities: Evaluations of diversity education in academic and organizational settings. Academy of Management Learning & Education 7(3): 309–331.

46.

Leibbrandt

Woolard

(2000) The contribution of income components to income inequality in the rural former homelands of South Africa: A decomposable Gini analysis. Journal of African Economies 9(1): 79–99.

47.

McClintock

(1991) No longer in a future heaven: Women and nationalism in South Africa. Transition 51: 104–123.

48.

McMohan

Schulman

Cockburn

(2007) X-Kit History. Cape Town, South Africa: Pearson Education.

49.

Mandela

(1994) Long Walk to Freedom. Cape Town, South Africa: MacDonald Purnell.

50.

Marcum

(1982) Education, Race, and Social Change in South Africa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

51.

Mason

Zanish-Belcher

(2007) Raising the archival consciousness: How women’s archives challenge traditional approaches to collecting and use, or, what’s in a name? Library Trends 56(2): 344–359.

52.

Milem

(1994) College, students and racial understanding. Thought and Action 9(2): 51–92.

53.

Milem

Chang

Antonio

(2005) Making Diversity Work on Campus: A Research-based Perspective. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

54.

Ndlovu

(2006) The Soweto uprising. In: Ndlovu

(ed.) The Road to Democracy in South Africa Volume Two 1970–1980. Pretoria, South Africa: Unisa Press, pp. 317–351.

55.

Neumann

(2002) Diversity, doctoral education and policy. Higher Education Research and Development 21(2): 167–178.

56.

Pattman

(2010) Investigating ‘race’ and social cohesion at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. South African Journal of Higher Education 24(6): 963–971.

57.

Peterson

Briggs

Dreasher

Horner

Nelson

(1999) Contributions of international students and programs to campus diversity. New Directions for Student Services 86: 67–77.

58.

Portes

(2000) Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. In: Lesser

(ed.) Knowledge and Social Capital. Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, pp. 43–67.

59.

Power

(1991) Educating accountants: Towards a critical ethnography. Accounting, Organizations and Society 16(4): 333–353.

60.

Prinsloo

Cloete

(2002) Post-apartheid residential mobility patterns in two South African cities. Property Management 20(4): 264–277.

61.

Pulse (1994) School of Accounting hosts Winter School. Pulse 2(6): 2–4.

62.

Quaye

Harper

(2014) Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Approaches for Diverse Populations. New York: Routledge.

63.

Ratcatcher (2012) Apartheid and the universities. Politicsweb, 17 January. Available at: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/apartheid-and-the-universities

64.

Reddy

(2004) Higher education and social transformation: South African case study. Report for Council on Higher Education, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, February.

65.

Rendon

(1996) Educating a New Majority: Transforming America’s Education System for Diversity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

66.

Retief-Venter

De Villiers

(2013) The accounting profession’s influence on academe: South African evidence. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 26(8): 1246–1278.

67.

Richard

Kirby

(1999) Organizational justice and the justification of work force diversity programs. Journal of Business and Psychology 14(1): 109–118.

68.

Sax

(1996) The dynamics of tokenism: How college students are affected by the proportion of women in their major. Research in Higher Education 37(4): 389–425.

69.

Schulze

(1997) Origin and legal nature of the stokvel (Part 1). South African Mercantile Law Journal 9: 18–29.

70.

Simbao

(2007) The thirtieth anniversary of the Soweto uprisings: Reading the shadow in Sam Nzima’s iconic photograph of Hector Pieterson. African Arts 40(2): 52–69.

71.

Skills Development Act No. 97 of 1998, South Africa.

72.

Soudien

(2008) The intersection of race and class in the South African university: Student experiences. South African Journal of Higher Education 22(3): 662–678.

73.

South African Qualifications Act 1995, South Africa.

74.

Squires

(2005) Is mainstreaming transformative? Theorizing mainstreaming in the context of diversity and deliberation. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 12(3): 366–388.

75.

Stake

(1995) The Art of Case Study Research. London: SAGE.

76.

Suransky

Van Der Merwe

(2014) Transcending apartheid in higher education: Transforming an institutional culture. Race, Ethnicity and Education 19(3): 577–597.

77.

Suttner

(2016) Op-Ed students protests an indictment of ‘Post-apartheid’ South Africa. Daily Maverick, 23 August. Available at: http://firstthing.dailymaverick.co.za/article?id=74208#.V7GwBPl96Uk

78.

Swift

(1991) Life more abundant: A retrospective look at Drum magazine in the 1970s. Drum, June, pp. 35–42.

79.

Terenzini

Cabrear

Colbeck

Bjorklund

Parente

(2001) Racial and ethnic diversity in the classroom: Does it promote student learning? Journal of Higher Education 72(5): 509–531.

80.

Terreblanche

(2002) A History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652–2002. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal Press.

81.

Trading Economics (2016) SA unemployment rate 2000–2016. Available at: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate

82.

Vincent

(2008) The limitations of ‘inter-racial contact’: Stories from young South Africa. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(8): 1426–1451.

83.

Volet

Ang

(1998) Culturally mixed groups on international campuses: An opportunity for inter-cultural learning. Higher Education Research and Development 17(1): 5–23.

84.

Wamsted

(2012) Borges and bike riders: Toward an understanding of autoethnography. Qualitative Research in Education 1(2): 179–201.

85.

Whitt

Nora

Edison

Terenzini

Pascarella

(1999) Women’s perceptions of a ‘chilly climate’ and cognitive outcomes in college: Additional evidence. Journal of College Student Development 40(2): 163–177.

86.

Wilkinson

(2014) The housing situation in South Africa. Available at: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-the-housing-situation-in-south-africa/

87.

Yuen

(1996, April) Grad Tech Accounting Placement Report. Johannesburg, South Africa: Report for Tertiary Institutions.