Learners as activists: Secondary school girls, critical consciousness, and the liberation struggle in Southwestern Zimbabwe, c.1966–1979

This paper offers a gendered analysis of the experiences of secondary school students in the fight against oppression in Rhodesia. Using case studies from mission boarding secondary schools in southwest Rhodesia, the article discusses the daily realities of secondary school girls during Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle (circa 1966–1979). This analysis is framed through the lenses of Critical Pedagogy and gender analysis. Guided by Paulo Freire’s concepts of critical consciousness, the study examines various forms of oppression at the school level and analyses the effects of racialised colonial educational policies and guerrilla war teachings in awakening activism among girl students. Archival records, oral histories, and secondary texts were the sources interrogated. It was discovered that while the major struggle was against colonial rule, forms of oppression also existed at the school level. Girls in secondary schools fought against such oppression through strikes, rumourmongering, and repurposing domestic skills for the war effort. The study concludes that these everyday acts of resistance, often overlooked, were central to the war's logistical and moral fabric, challenging the dominant masculinist historiography. Thus, the girls’ dual identity as learners and activists tested the masculinist framing of the liberation war. Therefore, there is a need for narratives of girls to be elevated in liberation discourses, as they were not only collaborators but also active participants in the birth of a post-colonial Zimbabwe. Consequently, this study subscribes to decolonial feminist historiography, repositioning schooling as a site of the girl child’s struggle for empowerment and social transformation.