In South Africa these integrated schools were launched at a time when racial and ethnic integration existed nowhere else in society. Segregation and all kinds of oppression were prevalent on all levels, socially, politically, economically, culturally, and educationally. Under these conditions one cannot blame the students for grouping together in their own particular cultural groups. Thus, one cannot expect distrust, suspicion, hatred, to be replaced instantly by trust and warm embraces. In the future, thought must be given to the role that different mother tongues play in grouping patterns.
Students tend to group where they feel most comfortable during conversations.
At the schools we see here, white, English-speaking students form the dominant group. Only a few whites may have Afrikaans as their mother tongue, because Afrikaans-speaking whites were mostly against racial integration in schools and therefore, not forced by the government to participate in the school desegregation process. The minority of blacks at the school, without doubt, have Xhosa as their mother tongue, while English or Afrikaans may be the languages of the few so-called coloureds in attendance. Although all the students at these schools are reasonably proficient in English, they prefer to spend their informal moments with their mother tongue associates. The whites and so-called coloureds, in any case, cannot speak or understand Xhosa.