South Africa’s recent history of apartheid, its
resultant high levels of poverty and extreme social and
economic distance between rich and poor continue to playout
in education in complex ways. The country provides a
somewhat different context for exploring the relationship
between SES and education than other countries. The
apartheid era only ended in 1994, after which education
became the vehicle for transforming society and a political
rhetoric of equity and quality education for all was prioritized.
Thus education focused on redressing inequalities;
and major curriculum change, with on-going revisions, was
attempted. In this sense engagement with SES and education
became foregrounded in policy, political discourse and
research literature. Yet for all the political will and rhetoric
little has been achieved and indicators are that inequality
has worsened in mathematics education, where it is particularly
pronounced. This paper proposes that continued
research confirming poverty–underachievement links,
which suggest an inevitability of positive correlations, is
unhelpful. Instead we should explore issues of disempowerment
and agency, constraints and possibilities, and the
complex interplay of factors that create these widely
established national statistics while simultaneously defying
them in particular local contexts. Such research could shift
the focus from a discourse of deficit and helplessness
towards a discourse of possibilities in the struggle for
equity and quality education for all