UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
College of Education
⋄
HED4805 ASSIGNMENT 3
Semester 2 Assignment 03 – 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4805
Module Name: South African History of Education
Assignment No.: Assignment 03
Due Date: 10 August 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
South African History of Education (HED4805)
at the University of South Africa.
,UNISA | HED4805 History of Education – Assignment 3
Question 1: Colonialism, Coloniality, and the South African Context
The extract from chapter 7 of Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter (2020) draws a crucial conceptual
distinction between colonialism and coloniality. Understanding both concepts, their relation-
ship to each other, and their manifestation in South Africa is foundational to any serious
engagement with the post-colonial reconstruction of education.
1.1 Definition of Colonialism
Colonialism, in my own words, is a system in which one nation or power seizes political, eco-
nomic, and cultural control over another people, typically through military conquest or com-
mercial domination. Under colonialism, the colonising power sets the rules, owns the land and
its resources, determines the form of government, and imposes its own language, religion, and
educational system on the colonised population. The colonised people are treated not as full
human beings with their own valid histories and cultures, but as subjects to be governed, con-
verted, civilised, or exploited, depending on the particular colonial project (Seroto, Davids and
Wolhuter, 2020).
Colonialism is therefore both a political and an economic arrangement: the colonising power
extracts wealth from the colony while simultaneously governing it through structures of dom-
ination. In the South African case, this meant Dutch and later British settler colonialism,
whereby indigenous land was seized, indigenous people were dispossessed, and an entire popu-
lation was subjected to racialised governance culminating in the apartheid system.
1.2 Maldonado-Torres on Coloniality
Maldonado-Torres (2007) argues that coloniality is something fundamentally different from
colonialism, even though it grows out of it. Coloniality refers to a logic, a metaphysics, and
a matrix of power that can continue operating after formal independence and desegregation.
Where colonialism is a political and economic relationship that can, in principle, be ended by
political and economic change (as happened when South Africa became a democracy in 1994),
coloniality is the persistence of colonial patterns of thought, social relations, and knowledge
production that outlast the formal end of colonial rule (Davids, 2013, as cited in Stellenbosch
University, n.d.).
For Maldonado-Torres (2007), coloniality perpetuates hegemonic identities and epistemic hier-
Page 1 of 20
, UNISA | HED4805 History of Education – Assignment 3
archies. It operates through what he calls the “coloniality of power” (a concept he develops in
dialogue with Quijano and Mignolo), in which the colonial ordering of the world continues to
shape who is seen as fully human, whose knowledge is treated as scientific, and whose history
is recorded and taught. Even when the colonial state is formally dissolved, the worldview it
installed persists in institutions, curricula, social norms, and the self-perception of formerly
colonised people.
1.3 The Difference Between Colonialism and Coloniality
The distinction Maldonado-Torres (2007) draws can be summarised as follows: colonialism is
an ontic concept; it refers to a specific historical set of political and economic relationships
in which a foreign power controls a territory and its people. Coloniality is a deeper concept;
it refers to the logic and structures of dominance that colonialism installed and that survive
beyond the formal withdrawal of colonial power (Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter, 2020).
To put it concretely: South Africa ended colonialism in 1994 when it held its first democratic
elections. But the spatial inequality of its cities (Black townships on the periphery, white
suburbs with better infrastructure at the centre), the persistent dominance of European lan-
guages in higher education, and the ongoing marginalisation of indigenous knowledge systems
in curricula are all expressions of coloniality, not colonialism. Mignolo, as cited in the extract,
describes this as a “coloniality of power” that operates through a “colonial difference,” shaping
the experience of anyone who lives in modernity from the position of the colonised (Seroto,
Davids and Wolhuter, 2020).
W.E.B. du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness,” borrowed by Mignolo, captures the psy-
chological dimension of this: the colonised subject internalises the coloniser’s view of them-
selves as inferior, and lives with the tension between their own cultural identity and the iden-
tity imposed by the colonial system (Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter, 2020:29–30).
Key Distinction
Key Distinction: Colonialism ends when the colonisers leave (or are defeated). Colo-
niality does not. A student who studies only European philosophy at a South African
university, who is taught African history only through European sources, and who
graduates having never encountered an African epistemology as a legitimate frame-
work for understanding the world, is experiencing coloniality, even in a post-apartheid,
post-colonial state.
Page 2 of 20
College of Education
⋄
HED4805 ASSIGNMENT 3
Semester 2 Assignment 03 – 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4805
Module Name: South African History of Education
Assignment No.: Assignment 03
Due Date: 10 August 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
South African History of Education (HED4805)
at the University of South Africa.
,UNISA | HED4805 History of Education – Assignment 3
Question 1: Colonialism, Coloniality, and the South African Context
The extract from chapter 7 of Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter (2020) draws a crucial conceptual
distinction between colonialism and coloniality. Understanding both concepts, their relation-
ship to each other, and their manifestation in South Africa is foundational to any serious
engagement with the post-colonial reconstruction of education.
1.1 Definition of Colonialism
Colonialism, in my own words, is a system in which one nation or power seizes political, eco-
nomic, and cultural control over another people, typically through military conquest or com-
mercial domination. Under colonialism, the colonising power sets the rules, owns the land and
its resources, determines the form of government, and imposes its own language, religion, and
educational system on the colonised population. The colonised people are treated not as full
human beings with their own valid histories and cultures, but as subjects to be governed, con-
verted, civilised, or exploited, depending on the particular colonial project (Seroto, Davids and
Wolhuter, 2020).
Colonialism is therefore both a political and an economic arrangement: the colonising power
extracts wealth from the colony while simultaneously governing it through structures of dom-
ination. In the South African case, this meant Dutch and later British settler colonialism,
whereby indigenous land was seized, indigenous people were dispossessed, and an entire popu-
lation was subjected to racialised governance culminating in the apartheid system.
1.2 Maldonado-Torres on Coloniality
Maldonado-Torres (2007) argues that coloniality is something fundamentally different from
colonialism, even though it grows out of it. Coloniality refers to a logic, a metaphysics, and
a matrix of power that can continue operating after formal independence and desegregation.
Where colonialism is a political and economic relationship that can, in principle, be ended by
political and economic change (as happened when South Africa became a democracy in 1994),
coloniality is the persistence of colonial patterns of thought, social relations, and knowledge
production that outlast the formal end of colonial rule (Davids, 2013, as cited in Stellenbosch
University, n.d.).
For Maldonado-Torres (2007), coloniality perpetuates hegemonic identities and epistemic hier-
Page 1 of 20
, UNISA | HED4805 History of Education – Assignment 3
archies. It operates through what he calls the “coloniality of power” (a concept he develops in
dialogue with Quijano and Mignolo), in which the colonial ordering of the world continues to
shape who is seen as fully human, whose knowledge is treated as scientific, and whose history
is recorded and taught. Even when the colonial state is formally dissolved, the worldview it
installed persists in institutions, curricula, social norms, and the self-perception of formerly
colonised people.
1.3 The Difference Between Colonialism and Coloniality
The distinction Maldonado-Torres (2007) draws can be summarised as follows: colonialism is
an ontic concept; it refers to a specific historical set of political and economic relationships
in which a foreign power controls a territory and its people. Coloniality is a deeper concept;
it refers to the logic and structures of dominance that colonialism installed and that survive
beyond the formal withdrawal of colonial power (Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter, 2020).
To put it concretely: South Africa ended colonialism in 1994 when it held its first democratic
elections. But the spatial inequality of its cities (Black townships on the periphery, white
suburbs with better infrastructure at the centre), the persistent dominance of European lan-
guages in higher education, and the ongoing marginalisation of indigenous knowledge systems
in curricula are all expressions of coloniality, not colonialism. Mignolo, as cited in the extract,
describes this as a “coloniality of power” that operates through a “colonial difference,” shaping
the experience of anyone who lives in modernity from the position of the colonised (Seroto,
Davids and Wolhuter, 2020).
W.E.B. du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness,” borrowed by Mignolo, captures the psy-
chological dimension of this: the colonised subject internalises the coloniser’s view of them-
selves as inferior, and lives with the tension between their own cultural identity and the iden-
tity imposed by the colonial system (Seroto, Davids and Wolhuter, 2020:29–30).
Key Distinction
Key Distinction: Colonialism ends when the colonisers leave (or are defeated). Colo-
niality does not. A student who studies only European philosophy at a South African
university, who is taught African history only through European sources, and who
graduates having never encountered an African epistemology as a legitimate frame-
work for understanding the world, is experiencing coloniality, even in a post-apartheid,
post-colonial state.
Page 2 of 20
