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The major aim of this paper is to condense and make more widely available some of the unpublished research findings in South African social science. This survey is by no means exhaustive, as it deliberately excludes a number of fields, such as purely demographic, anthropological, economic, historical, or theoretical studies. Works having a direct or indirect bearing on race relations constitute the main focus of the present paper, which thus compliments a recent survey of published South African literature. Due to the nature of South African society, social science research in that country is strongly problem-oriented. As a society in an acute state of tension and conflict, South Africa constitutes an ideal laboratory. At the same time, however, research suffers from a number of handicaps. The universities have very limited financial resources and what money is available is devoted to undergraduate teaching rather than research. Consequently the number of graduate students, many of whom are on the teaching stall, is small. Furthermore, the government, through its apartheid regulations, greatly hinders research, particularly South Africans. Recent years have witnessed an exodus of academic personnel, thereby causing a rapid deterioration in the quality of the English-speaking universities.

The article compares the teaching of reading in the three main sectors of the Cape Town population in South Africa. The three distinct groups of children are the European, the Colored and the Bantu. The European children speak two languages, Afrikaans and English. The Colored population has informal learning of the alternative language outside the classroom and little actual teaching of the second language. The method of teaching was structured with different reading groups and a systematic program of studying words and practicing phonic skills. The Bantu schools are involved with basic issues of literacy. The European teachers are worried by a declining interest in and standards of reading of their older pupils. The method of teaching used by the Colored teachers was much less complex.

The article investigates the educational background of the white elite in South Africa. The author identifies the universities for the white elite in the country and describes their characteristics. According to the author, the examination of educational background contributes greatly to an understanding of the character of the elite itself. The author adds that it is a feature of schools for the elite to foster close personal relationships among students which persist into later life. How these schools shape the elite of the country, and how the elite, in turn, influence the general society, are further discussed in the article.