Rajendra Chetty

Professor Rajendra Chetty

Faculty of Education

Rajendra Chetty is a postcolonial scholar with trans-disciplinary research interests that draw from critical theory and social movement scholarship. He leans on critical educational studies and has written on the problems of literacy in high poverty communities and the intersectionality of race, class and inequality in schooling. His international collaborative research projects include ‘Decolonizing Education and Research on Migration’ funded by an International Thematic Network Grant and ‘Flemish/SA Teacher competence to handle diversity’ funded by the FWO/NRF.

His international scholarship and visiting professorships include universities in the USA, India, Brazil, Sweden, the UK, Italy and Africa. In 2015/16 he was Fulbright professor at the City University of New York (Queens College and the Graduate Centre).  He is editor of The English Academy Review: A journal of English Studies. His alliance with civil society groups like Equal Education, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and READ, has seen him work with activists within a participatory paradigm, drawing consistently from critical race theories. 

There are three focal areas in his research programme (literacy; race, class and marginalisation; and postcolonial writings). All three areas are connected by post- and decolonial theoretical constructs, key being critical theory and radical intellectualisation based on the ideas of Freire, Fanon and Biko. The project on literacy practices in poor schools in Cape Town is cognisant not only of the neoliberal/neo-apartheid agenda of the state, but also the influence of out-of-school issues like poverty, violence, gangsterism, xenophobia, migration, refugee status and drug abuse on classroom achievement. It is evident that disciplinary knowledge may be inadequate to address complex social problems and that there should be wider societal participation in knowledge production using a transdisciplinary lens and foregrounding voices and narratives of civil society. Apart from discernible factors for scholastic underachievement like a lack of resources, parental support, poor teacher knowledge and a regressive curriculum, the research projects note two new areas of concern: absence of cognitive activities and social complexity of poverty. 

 

A new model of literacy that challenges inequality and provides strategic and sustained teacher support in disadvantaged schools is crucial in the post-apartheid society. The objective of the research on out-of-school issues is that classroom achievement cannot be separated from learners’ home and community environment. The issue of educational inequality emanating from socio-economic disadvantage is a complex research area and it links with increased levels of violence and high rates of youth unemployment.  An allied component of the research programme is to extend the decoloniality discourse to local struggles and subaltern positionings.

Rajendra is a rated social scientist with the National Research Foundation (International recognition status); published extensively in accredited journals;  authored 8 books; successfully supervised over 40 postgraduate students; received the medal of honour from the South African Education Association for his research and the Gold Medal from the English Academy of Southern Africa for his contribution to literacy development in poor communities.

Relevant publications