Abstract:

The study explores analysis of characters in Setswana drama text in relation to respect as the principle of Ubuntu. South African higher education lecturers often draw upon respect as key value within citizenship education. Their teaching of this value is often conflated with promotion of the practice Ubuntu in relation to respect by characters in drama text. The constructions of respect and responsibility in these situations are imbued with assumptions around authority and power relations, such as characters are expected to take responsibility for demonstrating respect for in an equal rather than reciprocal understanding of respect. This paper therefore focuses on Setswana speaking teacher education students who are taught to attain skills in specific literature and genres. Thus, negotiations of different kinds of respect are highlighted as the researcher, using the drama text, as the teaching strategy has observed that education must be an integrated dimension of students’ perceptions, experiences and reflections that need to form part of discussion, which allow explorations of new content as well as dialogue where differences and contrasting ideas are deliberated. Preliminary results indicate that the need for schools to embody a culture of ethos of respect is noted if students are to be expected to recognise and adopt respect as a key element to characters in the text.

Keywords:

Respect as the principle of Ubuntu, characters in drama text, education.