Gender norms in South Africa: implications for HIV and pregnancy prevention among African and Indian women students at a South African tertiary institution

This study explores Grade 4 school children’s experiences of cross-sex relationships in a co- educational farm school in uMgungundlovu district in South Africa. The aim is to understand if and how constructions of gender bear on young children’s social relations at the school. Informed by children’s geographies and new sociology of childhood studies, this study uses data from semi-structured interviews and photo-voice imagery based on a qualitative narrative study of three girls and three boys aged between 9 and 12 years. The study found that children’s experiences of cross-sex relationships were deeply entrenched in traditional discourses of masculinities and femininities. These rigidly constructed discourses of gender were found to constrain possibilities and fluidities with which children navigated places and spaces of cross- sex relationships in the school. The hegemonic regulatory power of gender norms was a yardstick, informing children’s organisation and performances of cross-sex relationships even if some children had developed creative ways of subverting dominant gender norms in how they navigated in cross-sex relationships. The study argues for the liberalisation of gender norms, in order to allow children to freely – without being constrained by their genitalia – take subject positions of gender in cross-sex relationships. This would promote sustainable equitable gender relations, as children learn how to engage in cross-sex relationships, beyond the constraining prescripts of dominant masculinities and femininities.

Download Full-text

Potential determinants of students’ academic success in private tertiary education in South Africa

The Business and Management Review ◽

10.24052/bmr/v11nu02/art-09 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (02) ◽

pp. 69-78

Author(s):

Riley Carpenter ◽

◽

Tracy Kraus ◽

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Academic Success ◽

South African ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Private Higher Education ◽

Accounting Students ◽

Tertiary Institution ◽

Tertiary Institutions ◽

Several Variables ◽

Use Of Technology

Racial transformation is essential for the South African accounting profession. Consequently, adequate support is required for students pursuing the chartered accountant (CA(SA)) designation. This study examines determinants of success in private tertiary institutions in South Africa. The variables considered are demographic details (age, gender, and race), prior academic performance, prior tertiary institution, previous attempts, time lapses between undergraduate and postgraduate study, class format selection, use of technology and mentorship. While this study reviews prior work on private higher education, it is also innovative as it extends existing research by considering several variables which have not been investigated before in South Africa. The findings highlight the need for further empirical research on the determinants of success in private tertiary education to better support accounting students.

Download Full-text

Reframing Xenophobia in South Africa as Colour-Blind: The Limits of the Afro Phobia Thesis

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v17i3.789 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 433-444

Author(s):

Amanuel Isak Tewolde

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Conflict Theory ◽

Black African ◽

South Africans ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Online Newspaper ◽

Close Proximity ◽

Realistic Conflict Theory

Many scholars and South African politicians characterize the widespread anti-foreigner sentiment and violence in South Africa as dislike against migrants and refugees of African origin which they named ‘Afro-phobia’. Drawing on online newspaper reports and academic sources, this paper rejects the Afro-phobia thesis and argues that other non-African migrants such as Asians (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and Chinese) are also on the receiving end of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. I contend that any ‘outsider’ (White, Asian or Black African) who lives and trades in South African townships and informal settlements is scapegoated and attacked. I term this phenomenon ‘colour-blind xenophobia’. By proposing this analytical framework and integrating two theoretical perspectives — proximity-based ‘Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT)’ and Neocosmos’ exclusivist citizenship model — I contend that xenophobia in South Africa targets those who are in close proximity to disadvantaged Black South Africans and who are deemed outsiders (e.g., Asian, African even White residents and traders) and reject arguments that describe xenophobia in South Africa as targeting Black African refugees and migrants.

Download Full-text

Region of Birth and Child Mortality among Black Migrants to South Africa: Is there a foreign-born advantage?

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v13i3.289 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 359-376 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tiffany L Green ◽

Amos C Peters

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Child Mortality ◽

Southern Africa ◽

Strong Relationship ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Black Immigrants ◽

Foreign Born ◽

Region Of Origin ◽

Child Deaths

Much of the existing evidence for the healthy immigrant advantage comes from developed countries. We investigate whether an immigrant health advantage exists in South Africa, an important emerging economy. Using the 2001 South African Census, this study examines differences in child mortality between native-born South African and immigrant blacks. We find that accounting for region of origin is critical: immigrants from southern Africa are more likely to experience higher lifetime child mortality compared to the native-born population. Further, immigrants from outside of southern Africa are less likely than both groups to experience child deaths. Finally, in contrast to patterns observed in developed countries, we detect a strong relationship between schooling and child mortality among black immigrants.

Download Full-text

Some Reflections on Reparation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, using a Couple Therapy Intervention as a Microcosm of South African Society

Couple and Family Psychoanalysis ◽

10.33212/cfp.v1n2.2011.222 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Andrea Hill ◽

Sylvia Poss

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Couple Therapy ◽

South African Society ◽

Depressive Position ◽

Central Hypothesis ◽

Transference And Countertransference ◽

Constructive Engagement ◽

The Impact ◽

Therapy Intervention

The paper addresses the question of reparation in post-apartheid South Africa. The central hypothesis of the paper is that in South Africa current traumas or losses, such as the 2008 xenophobic attacks, may activate a ‘shared unconscious phantasy’ of irreparable damage inflicted by apartheid on the collective psyche of the South African nation which could block constructive engagement and healing. A brief couple therapy intervention by a white therapist with a black couple is used as a ‘microcosm’ to explore this question. The impact of an extreme current loss, when earlier losses have been sustained, is explored. Additionally, the impact of racial difference on the transference and countertransference between the therapist and the couple is explored to illustrate factors complicating the productive grieving and working through of the depressive position towards reparation.

Download Full-text

The Final ‘Thank You’

Derrida Today ◽

10.3366/drt.2010.0003 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 21-36

Author(s):

Grant Farred

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Jacques Derrida ◽

Political Transition ◽

The Other ◽

World Cup ◽

The Core ◽

Nelson Mandela ◽

Black President ◽

The Moment

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1

Download Full-text

Apartheid Aesthetics and Insignificant Art

Journal of Musicology ◽

10.1525/jm.2016.33.1.45 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 45-69

Author(s):

Stephanus Muller

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Secondary School ◽

South African ◽

Cultural Production ◽

Art Songs ◽

Cultural Significance ◽

European Culture ◽

Small House ◽

The Rich ◽

Selection Of

Stephanus Le Roux Marais (1896−1979) lived in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa, for nearly a quarter of a century. He taught music at the local secondary school, composed most of his extended output of Afrikaans art songs, and painted a number of small landscapes in the garden of his small house, nestled in the bend of the Sunday’s River. Marais’s music earned him a position of cultural significance in the decades of Afrikaner dominance of South Africa. His best-known songs (“Heimwee,” “Kom dans, Klaradyn,” and “Oktobermaand”) earned him the local appellation of “the Afrikaans Schubert” and were famously sung all over the world by the soprano Mimi Coertse. The role his ouevre played in the construction of a so-called European culture in Africa is uncontested. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the rich evocations of landscape encountered in Marais’s work. Contextualized by a selection of Marais’s paintings, this article glosses the index of landscape in this body of cultural production. The prevalence of landscape in Marais’s work and the range of its expression contribute novel perspectives to understanding colonial constructions of the twentieth-century South African landscape. Like the vast, empty, and ancient landscape of the Karoo, where Marais lived during the last decades of his life, his music assumes specificity not through efforts to prioritize individual expression, but through the distinct absence of such efforts. Listening for landscape in Marais’s songs, one encounters the embrace of generic musical conventions as a condition for the construction of a particular national identity. Colonial white landscape, Marais’s work seems to suggest, is deprived of a compelling musical aesthetic by its very embrace and desired possession of that landscape.

Download Full-text

Religion, Gender Norms and Campus Rape Culture: Building Resistance from Below

Politeia ◽

10.25159/0256-8845/4489 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Selina Palm

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Social Norms ◽

Gender Norms ◽

Rape Culture ◽

Public Attention ◽

Gendered Violence ◽

Agents Of Change ◽

Religious Formation ◽

Legal Forms ◽

South African Higher Education

In recent years, protests against campus rape culture at South African higher education institutions have attracted public attention. Despite strong constitutional provisions, a culture of sexual and gendered violence remains endemic in South Africa. In the light of the gap between legal forms and social norms, this article argues for building socio-political resistance from below that starts with exploring the lived experiences of young women. It therefore introduces the voice of one ordinary student who inhabits these spaces. She highlights the need for attention to be paid to the gendered social norms that underpin this culture of sexual violence, the possibilities of engaging men as allies and the important but ambiguous role of the Christian religion. Research suggests that bystanders like her can become important agents of change. The article concludes that the connections between hierarchical gender norms, religious formation and rape culture need further empirical engagement in South Africa if their power-laden roots are to be disrupted and reimagined.

Download Full-text

ROLE OF LIBRARIANS IN TEACHING INFORMATION LITERACY IN ZIMBABWEAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Mousaion ◽

10.25159/0027-2639/842 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 23-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Tinashe Mugwisi

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Information Literacy ◽

Ethical Issues ◽

University Libraries ◽

Information And Communications Technologies ◽

Communications Technologies ◽

Information Skills ◽

The University

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the Internet have to a large extent influenced the way information is made available, published and accessed. More information is being produced too frequently and information users now require certain skills to sift through this multitude in order to identify what is appropriate for their purposes. Computer and information skills have become a necessity for all academic programmes. As libraries subscribe to databases and other peer-reviewed content (print and electronic), it is important that users are also made aware of such sources and their importance. The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching of information literacy (IL) in universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the role played by librarians in creating information literate graduates. This was done by examining whether such IL programmes were prioritised, their content and how frequently they were reviewed. An electronic questionnaire was distributed to 12 university libraries in Zimbabwe and 21 in South Africa. A total of 25 questionnaires were returned. The findings revealed that IL was being taught in universities library and non-library staff, was compulsory and contributed to the term mark in some institutions. The study also revealed that 44 per cent of the total respondents indicated that the libraries were collaborating with departments and faculty in implementing IL programmes in universities. The study recommends that IL should be an integral part of the university programmes in order to promote the use of databases and to guide students on ethical issues of information use.

Download Full-text

Foreigners' Rights to Work and Fair Labour Practices in South Africa: A Review of the South African Labour Legislation and Jurisprudence

Southern African Public Law ◽

10.25159/2522-6800/5093 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Andre Mangu

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Human Rights ◽

South African ◽

Bill Of Rights ◽

The South ◽

Legislation And Jurisprudence ◽

Foreign Nationals ◽

Lay Persons ◽

Democratic State ◽

Labour Legislation

After several decades of apartheid rule, which denied human rights to the majority of the population on the ground of race and came to be regarded as a crime against humanity, South Africa adopted its first democratic Constitution in the early 1990s. The 1996 Constitution, which succeeded the 1993 interim Constitution, is considered one of the most progressive in the world. In its founding provisions, it states that South Africa is a democratic state founded on human dignity, the achievement of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms. The Constitution enshrines fundamental human rights in a justiciable Bill of Rights as a cornerstone of democracy. Unfortunately, in the eyes of a number of politicians, officials and lay-persons, the rights in the Bill of Rights accrue to South African citizens only. Xenophobia, which has been rampant since the end of apartheid, seems to support the idea that foreigners should not enjoy these rights. Foreign nationals have often been accused of posing a threat to South African citizens with regard to employment opportunities. In light of the South African legislation and jurisprudence, this article affirms the position of the South African labour law that foreign nationals are indeed protected by the Constitution and entitled to rights in the Bill of Rights, including the rights to work and fair labour practices.

Download Full-text