‘A person is a person because of others’: Challenges to meanings of discipline in South African and UK schools

In this article the authors consider current understandings of discipline in schools in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The concern is with exploring the discipline/punishment/power nexus in education in both countries; with how reductionist versions of discipline as authoritarianism interweave with views about the aims and perceived need for punishment in schools, and how this is driven by perceptions of a need to maintain control or power over young people, often viewed as a ‘generation of suspects’. The authors argue that a restorative approach can be used to build more inclusive school communities where staff and students negotiate new meanings of discipline and power. Some of the key challenges associated with a restorative approach are then explored in detail and the notion of ubuntu – ‘A person is a person because of others' – strongly associated with the new South Africa and its reassertion of traditional principles and values, is suggested as a useful compass for future development in both countries. In very different contexts, but facing many of the same challenges, the authors ask: What can the United Kingdom learn from South Africa and what can South Africa learn from the United Kingdom?