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May 24, 20260 citationsOpen Access

Collectively oppressed and unequal: University students' perceptions of quality of life

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HCHuman Sciences Research Council

Key Points

  • The aim is to explore university students' perceptions of quality of life and experiences of inequality in South Africa.
  • Interviews with university students regarding their experiences and perceptions.
  • Narrative analysis focusing on themes of exclusion, oppression, and identity.
  • Contextual examination of institutional structures like colonial statutes.
  • Students reported a persistent sense of exclusion and inequality within the university environment.
  • Narratives highlighted that despite democracy, life has not improved for black students.
  • Cultural and institutional practices rooted in apartheid continue to marginalize African identities.

Abstract

In 2015, a clarion call for radical social transformation sounded at South African universities. Rooted in a narrative of an urgent need to decolonise universities through radical and revolutionary change, students highlighted a sense that the status quo within South African universities perpetuates racialised patterns of exclusion and inequality. For them, this repression undermines the social and economic inclusion of black students in contemporary South Africa society. the argue that life for them had not necessary improved under democratic and dominant rule by the African National Congress (ANC). Their narrative emphasised the exclusionary structure of universities, symbolised in colonial statutes like that of Cecil Jon Rhodes. (#RhodesMustFall) and driven ideologically by "apartheid culture" (OpenStellenbosch) that does not advance an African philosophical and intellectual project, rendering African identity and lived experiences of oppression and continued economic and social marginalisation to the periphery of society.

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Cite This Study

Human Sciences Research Council (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a12969d48a0ea16656739f3https://doi.org/10.14749/32364816
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1Rhodes Must Fall: Different layers of intersectionality in student protests in South Africa2026
  2. 2South African higher education and the normalisation of oppression2026
  3. 3Factors that contribute to student protests at a South African university2026
  4. 4Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa2026
  5. 5Decolonization in South African universities: storytelling as subversion and reclamation2024 · 9 citations