Race was an official marker of difference and discrimination in apartheid South Africa. Racially differentiated schools played an important role in producing the racialized consciousness that sustained segregation. The post apartheid period is officially inscribed with a non-racial and human rights orientated public discourse. The focus of this presentation is on the continuing impact of race on the organization of schools under a democratic dispensation. It will discuss how the state has gone about removing race as an organizing principle of public schooling. The responses of ordinary school communities, some still race based and others integrated, will be examined. Key will be to understand the role of schools in the re-invention of race, what I’ll refer to as re-racialization, in cases where some communities have attempted to retain positions of privilege. Who is excluded from such schools will be a key consideration. Conversely, the article will also discuss the ‘opening up’ of productive spaces where sections of the black majority have been involved in quality schooling. The complex legacy of new inclusion and exclusion patterns in schooling, based on race, but also on class and geography, will be the article’s conceptual focus.

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