Abstract
Through the voice of one Soweto boychild, named Kabelo, this study is an appeal for the recognition of the everyday play capabilities of township children in formal education practice, policy and research. It deliberately places under a microscope, a township boychild who is labelled in the formal education system as underperforming, learning-disabled and cognitively-challenged. In this respect, he is a consummate representative of a pattern of boy academic underperformance that has emerged in South Africa and worldwide, particularly in reading and literacy. This pattern feeds a dominant narrative about systemic learning deficits that risks the constant stigmatisation of the majority of South African children and renders their everyday worlds invisible...
D.Phil. (Education)