^aAcademic Development Centre, Rhodes University, P.O. Box 94, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa. E-mail: C.Boughey@ru.ac.za

Abstract

At an international level, the peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa has often been lauded as miraculous. While political transformation might have been highly successful, changes in other spheres have proved to be much more problematic. This paper examines the change in higher education in South Africa and, more particularly, the role played by the field of Academic or, as it tends to be known elsewhere, Educational Development in that change. In order to do so, it uses Dale's understanding of mutual contradiction of the state's need to foster the conditions for capitalist expansion while, at the same time, guaranteeing the conditions for social reproduction as providing a space for policy activity. The role played by the South African Educational Development movement from the early 1980s onwards is then analysed within the context of this policy activity.