Learning risk assessment in South Africa: Issues of language power and imperialism

This article seeks to explore some of the issues that underpinned the development and teaching of a course in risk assessment in child protection in South Africa. University College Chichester and the Institute of Child and Family Development at the University of the Western Cape are involved in an ongoing programme of co-operation that began in 1997. As part of this programme the course was taught by the author, a female, white, English, ex-social-worker academic to a majority black South African multiprofessional audience. The article explores some of the issues this raises and asks whether it is possible for a white English educator to teach black South African students a western model of risk assessment using English as the language of teaching. Secondly, is there enough common ground to mitigate some of the impact of the differences of race and culture, particularly the power differences that emanate from an imperialist legacy? In seeking to address these questions the article argues that teaching methodology is crucial to the student experience. The author writes in the first person in recognition of the fact that she presents one face of a multifaceted experience and argues that, to protect children, we must learn from each other and find a way to work through history rather than be paralysed by the past.