Discussion: Research Plan

For your initial post, organize your revised research questions, current thesis statement, and an outline or checklist of your plan for conducting further research on your topic into a new discussion post. In a few paragraphs, discuss what relevant sources you have identified and the process for accessing those sources.

When responding to your peers, critique their plan and offer suggestions for thinking like a historian. Does their plan suggest that they are thinking about change over time, context, causality, complexity, and contingency?

For your response posts (2), you must do the following: 

•   Reply to at least two different classmates outside of your own initial post thread.
•   In Module One, complete the two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
•   In Modules Two through Eight, complete the two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.
•   Demonstrate more depth and thought than simply stating that “I agree” or “You are wrong.” Guidance is provided for you in each discussion prompt. 

classmates Post #1:  

My first research question is: Nelson Mandela became a martyr for 27 years; how did this time help South Africa’s movement towards ending apartheid? My second research question is: After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, how did the collaboration of Mandela and President R. W. Klerk aid in the dissolve of South Africa apartheid?

How did President R. W. Klerk change the outcome of South Africa in 1990’s, and lead his country to ending apartheid and freeing of Nelson Mandela?

The question that I am concentrating on is the second one. The thesis statement that I am working on is:  After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 by President R. W. Klerk the two gentlemen successfully worked together to find a solution to end the South Africa apartheid and establish a multiracial government.  I have found many primary and secondary resources to help me in my research. These sources are helping me understand the relationship between Nelson Mandela and President Klerk.  The resources are also helping me understand the great gesture and significance of Mandela’s release and what it meant to Mr. Mandela and South Africa.

I have researched many resources using the Shapiro Library.  I have also gained knowledge researching the Nelson Mandela Foundation website https://www.nelsonmandela.org/.  While I knew a little about Nelson Mandela before my research, it has been interesting in learning about President Klerk.  He is a man who came into great power becoming the president of South Africa.  He also took a great risk in saving his country and angering his constituents by taking immediate steps to denounce apartheid. This article really focused on the leap of faith President Klerk took. “The end of apartheid was not inevitable.” Times[London, England], 12 Dec. 2013, p. 18. Infotrac Newsstand, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A352576529/STND?u=nhc_main&sid=STND&xid=d8ff7f95. Accessed 4 Apr. 2019.  I will continue to research articles and books to find out more about how these two gentlemen worked together to unite South Africa.

classmates Post #2: 

My revised research question is, how did the diminishment of the South African Apartheid laws in 1994 affect women rights in South Africa in the past 25 years? My second research question is, what effects did the diminishment of the South African Apartheid law have on children’s education after 1994 in South Africa?  These questions will help me to get to a foundation for my thesis statement. I have to decide which direction I will go with my research and what direction I want to take my research. I have decided on the second research question because I always want to understand the educational system effects on the culture and environment. The schools were segregated under the apartheid laws and many limitations were placed before them that hinder their future. Black children didn’t have the same luxuries as white children. They were faced with limited resources and few teachers. I was amazed to find out they also had to pay for their education while the white children’s education was free. This caused most of the black children to not make it passed the six grade.

My current thesis statement is, South African Apartheid ended in 1994, but the effects on the educational system for blacks remained in disrepair for a decade after apartheid ended.  The new constitution didn’t address the educational system in South Africa to make all colors and ethnicity in South Africa equal.

In the autobiography by Nelson “Long Walk to Freedom”, which is a primary source that I have been reading speaks about his life as a child and what the educational system was like during and after Apartheid. I will continue to research in the World History in Context- Gale to learn more about the South Africa Apartheid and the educational restrains that black and colored people were up against after 1994.

I will read from World History in context and “Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post- Apartheid South Africa that was written by Edward B. Fiske and Helen F. Ladd 2004, Brookings Institution Press. I looked at the education policy in South Africa and their accounts of the progress that South Africa has made in overcoming inequity in the quality of educational opportunities.

Reference List

Mandela N. Apartheid Has No Future. Vital Speeches of the Day. 1990;56(10):295-297. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=9004020559&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed April 4, 2019.

Van De Walle, N. (2005, January-February). Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Foreign Affairs, 84(1), 197. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/apps/doc/A136420829/WHIC?u=nhc_main&sid=WHIC&xid=368a17c7

Reference List

Buckwalter J. Nelson Mandela, Activist, Prisoner, President. Faces. 2006;22(6):6-9. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=19705753&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed April 4, 2019.