ABSTRACT:In many schools across South Africa, teachers and youth gather together at the start of the school day to sing hymns, say prayers, give speeches, present poetry, and watch performances by invited guests. These morning assembly performances, which are not recognized in the formal curriculum, last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of every school day. In this article, I examine how youth from three former black secondary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, perform their moral selves through morning assemblies. I identify and analyze four morning assembly performance styles, including: references to Christian beliefs, critiques on society, demonstrations of success, and commemoration of historical moments. By building on Butler's theory of performativity (1990, 1993), I argue that morning assemblies represent crucial spaces where youth enact messages of morality and ideas surrounding how they must think, behave, and act, and with whom they must associate. These daily repetitive acts further generate contrasting models of moral personhood. At times morning performances emphasize how youth must work hard as individuals to achieve future success, while other demonstrations center on how youth ought to live as moral beings in relation to those around them. Through these contrasting performances of their moral selves, youth advance visions of the "right" kind of future—their righteous paths forward. In stepping beyond the confines of curricular evaluation, this study contributes to anthropological studies of personhood, youth, and education by demonstrating how the often-overlooked in-between educational spaces of morning assemblies contribute to youths' moral selves.

中文翻译：

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正道：在南非晨会中践行道德

摘要：在南非的许多学校，教师和青年在开学时聚集在一起唱赞美诗、祈祷、演讲、发表诗歌并观看受邀嘉宾的表演。这些在正式课程中不被认可的早晨集会表演在每个上课日持续 15 分钟到一个小时不等。在本文中，我研究了来自南非夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省三所前黑人中学的青年如何通过晨会来表现他们的道德自我。我确定并分析了四种晨会表演风格，包括：对基督教信仰的引用、对社会的批评、成功的示范和对历史时刻的纪念。通过建立在巴特勒的述行理论 (1990, 1993) 之上，我认为，晨会代表了重要的空间，在那里青年围绕他们必须如何思考、行为和行动以及他们必须与谁交往来制定道德和观念的信息。这些日常重复的行为进一步产生了对比鲜明的道德人格模型。有时，早间表演强调青年作为个人必须如何努力工作才能取得未来的成功，而其他表演则侧重于青年应该如何与周围的人一起作为有道德的人生活。通过他们道德自我的这些对比表现，青年推进了“正确”未来的愿景——他们前进的正义道路。本研究超越了课程评估的范围，有助于对人格、青年、