DISTANCING THE PAST, racism as history in South African schools

206pp., paperback, Columbia University Press, New York, 2024

ISBN: 9780231213417

Winner of the 2025 Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award, Sociology of Human Rights Section, and the 2025 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, American Sociological Association.

In this study Chana Teeger analyses the role of history education in reproducing unequal power relations at school and legitimising inequality at the societal level.

Her research was conducted in two top-performing, former "Model-C schools: Glenville High and Roxbridge High.

"Elegantly composed, concisely written, lively, and provocative, Chana Teeger’s theoretically ambitious Distancing the Past examines education, collective memory, racial repression, and their intersection in post-apartheid South Africa. Based on impressive empirical research in two schools, the book provides crucial lessons on “color-blind” teaching for many contexts, including the United States." Joachim J. Savelsberg, author of Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggle

"Revealing how students are taught a color-blind perspective on race in history class just one generation after the end of apartheid, Teeger shows how any recognition of systemic racism is buried as historical artifact and viewed as “grudges” against white South Africans, despite evidence in students’ own lives to the contrary. A must-read for anyone interested in the production of race frames in schools. Highly recommended!" Natasha Warikoo, author of Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools

Chana Teeger is Associate Professor in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a senior research associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg.