Resilience to COVID-19-related stressors: Insights from emerging adults in a South African township

There is widespread recognition that stressors related to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) jeopardize the development of emerging adults, more particularly those living in disadvantaged communities. What is less well understood is what might support emerging adult resilience to COVID-19-related stressors. In response, this article reports a 5-week qualitative study with 24 emerging adults (average age: 20) living in a South African township. Using digital diaries and repeated individual interviews, young people shared their lived experiences of later (i.e., month 4 and 7) lockdown-related challenges (i.e., contagion fears; livelihood threats; lives-on-hold) and how they managed these challenges. An inductive thematic analysis showed that personal and collective compliance, generous ways-of-being, and tolerance-facilitators enabled emerging adult resilience to said challenges. Importantly, these resilience-enablers drew on resources associated with multiple systems and reflected the situational and cultural context of the township in question. In short, supporting emerging adult resilience to COVID-19-related stressors will require contextually aligned, multisystemic responses.

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African Emerging Adult Resilience: Insights From a Sample of Township Youth

Emerging Adulthood ◽

10.1177/2167696820940077 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 216769682094007

Author(s):

Linda C. Theron ◽

Diane Levine ◽

Michael Ungar

Keyword(s):

Emerging Adults ◽

South African ◽

Emerging Adult ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Positive Outcomes ◽

Digital Stories ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Group Interviews ◽

Everyday Reality ◽

Adult Resilience

What enables the resilience of African emerging adults who live in sub-Saharan Africa and must contend with an everyday reality that is characterized by structural disadvantage and related hardship? This question directed the exploratory qualitative research that we report in this article. Its genesis was the relative inattention to the resilience of African emerging adults—that is, young people living in sub-Saharan Africa, aged 18–29. To answer this question, 16 South African participants (average age 21) from a significantly stressed community participated in group interviews and generated digital stories. A deductive analysis of the content yielded the understanding that the self is central to emerging adult resilience. Family members mattered too, but there was scant reference to any other social or ecological resource. These findings urge attention to the dangers to resilience if social ecologies are not resourced to better co-facilitate positive outcomes for disadvantaged emerging adults.

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Immigrant Parents' Voices on Children's Right to Education in South African Schools: Connecting the Disconnected

Journal of Educational and Social Research ◽

10.36941/jesr-2021-0129 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 68

Author(s):

RN Nylon Marishane

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Immigrant Parents ◽

Community Members ◽

Right To Education ◽

Individual Interviews ◽

Educational Rights ◽

The Subject ◽

Educational Perspective ◽

The Right ◽

South African Township

This paper focuses on the school's protection of the right to education for immigrant learners as perceived by their parents. With its approach to the subject from the human rights-based educational perspective, this paper sought to examine immigrant parents' views on their children's right to education against their background as vulnerable and marginalised school community members. The assumption on which the study presented in this paper is based is that meaningful discussion on the right to education for immigrant learners cannot be disconnected from the challenges their parents face in educating them. Immigrant parents have their views and experiences relating to children's educational rights, which are seldom studied. Guided by this view, a qualitative approach was followed to gather data through semi-structured individual interviews held with parents of immigrant learners from four purposively selected South African township schools. The results show that immigrant parents experience enormous challenges in the education of their children in South African schools. While some of the challenges are transferred from them to their children because of non-citizenship, they attribute most of the challenges to people who teach their children, namely, teachers. Received: 2 August 2021 / Accepted: 3 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

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Loneliness, Disclosure, and Facebook Usage

Recent Advances in Digital Media Impacts on Identity, Sexuality, and Relationships - Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology ◽

10.4018/978-1-7998-1063-6.ch009 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 170-189

Author(s):

Fung Yin Lee ◽

Lynne M. Webb

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Emerging Adults ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Online Survey ◽

Emerging Adult ◽

Negative Information ◽

Self Disclosure ◽

Facebook Usage

The authors conducted an online survey of 241 emerging adults in Hong Kong, China to assess potential associations between loneliness, Facebook usage, and self-disclosure on Facebook. Loneliness was not associated with Facebook usage, but rather inversely related with negative disclosure; the lonelier the Facebook user, the less he/she disclosed negative information. The pattern of associations between Facebook usage and self-disclosure indicted that the more time users spent on Facebook, the more they revealed positive disclosures and the less they revealed negative disclosures. The authors argue that these findings may provide evidence of a “remain positive” norm among emerging adult Facebook users in Hong Kong. They note that their findings may be unique to their cultural context.

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Social Support Experiences of Spousally Bereaved Individuals in a South African Township Community: The Botho/Ubuntu Perspective

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.604987 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Tsholofelo Angela Thomas

Keyword(s):

Social Support ◽

South African ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Family Members ◽

North West ◽

Black South African ◽

The North ◽

Patriarchal Ideology ◽

Withdrawal Of Support ◽

South African Township

Bereavement is a deeply personal experience that is also shaped by one’s socio-cultural context. This qualitative study explored the social support experiences and needs of spousally bereaved individuals in a South African township. The botho/ubuntu philosophical framework was used to interpret participants’ experiences in this regard. Six ethnically diverse, bereaved spouses aged 55–67years, residing in a predominantly Setswana-speaking township in the North West Province of South Africa, were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. An indigenous knowledge consultant was interviewed to situate participant experiences pertaining to mourning rites and traditions within the indigenous socio-historical and contemporary cultural context. The following themes were identified: (i) Sources of social support during bereavement; (ii) Inadequate social support after spousal death; (iii) The need for grief counseling; and (iv) Social restrictions and systematic isolation during the traditional mourning period: “It is as if you smell.” Broadly, bereaved spouses drew on their support networks at various stages of their bereavement, which included family members, in-laws, friends, burial societies, their surrounding communities, and religious communities and figures. However, some experienced ostracization and stigmatization during the mourning period, which was invariably longer for the widows in this study, in line with conventions across Black South African cultures. Some participants reported withdrawal of support by their in-laws and harmful attitudes and assumptions rooted in patriarchal ideology by family members and in-laws. As pertaining to botho/ubuntu, the study also showed that communality or relationality entailed both positive and negative aspects, including support, co-operation, care, lack of support, stigmatization, and ostracization. Unlike conventional conceptualizations of botho/ubuntu, the study findings illustrate the human experience as comprising varying dimensions of relationality, ranging from harmony to disharmony. Findings regarding the negative aspects of communality are compatible with those relating to relational interdependence in African and East Asian settings. The findings also expand our understanding of the nature of disharmony alongside harmony in interdependent socio-cultural contexts.

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Evaluating the use of SMS and social media as research tools in an ethnography of South African township youth

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e570782013-018 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Michelle Nebergall

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

South African ◽

South African Township ◽

Research Tools

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Asexuals negotiate the ‘onslaught of the heteronormative’

Sexualities ◽

10.1177/1363460721993389 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136346072199338

Author(s):

Tiina Vares

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Everyday Life ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Emotional Responses ◽

Emotional Impact ◽

Individual Interviews ◽

The Past ◽

Aotearoa New Zealand ◽

The Everyday ◽

Research Gap

Although theorizing and research about asexuality have increased in the past decade, there has been minimal attention given to the emotional impact that living in a hetero- and amato-normative cultural context has on those who identify as asexual. In this paper, I address this research gap through an exploration of the ‘work that emotions do’ (Sara Ahmed) in the everyday lives of asexuals. The study is based on 15 individual interviews with self-identified asexuals living in Aotearoa New Zealand. One participant in the study used the phrase, ‘the onslaught of the heteronormative’ to describe how he experienced living as an aromantic identified asexual in a hetero- and amato-normative society. In this paper I consider what it means and feels like to experience aspects of everyday life as an ‘onslaught’. In particular, I look at some participants’ talk about experiencing sadness, loss, anger and/or shame as responses to/effects of hetero- and amato-normativity. However, I suggest that these are not only ‘negative’ emotional responses but that they might also be productive in terms of rethinking and disrupting hetero- and amato-normativity.

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Emerging Adult Report of Childhood Maltreatment and Related Facets of Impulsivity

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260521997952 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088626052199795

Author(s):

Mary Moussa Rogers ◽

Erica Szkody ◽

Cliff McKinney

Keyword(s):

Emerging Adults ◽

Childhood Maltreatment ◽

Sensation Seeking ◽

Adult Child ◽

Emerging Adult ◽

Negative Urgency ◽

Child Gender ◽

Emotional Maltreatment ◽

Gender Dyads ◽

Physical Maltreatment

Childhood maltreatment is related to a host of outcomes, many of which may be partially explained by the transdiagnostic factor of impulsivity. The research linking maltreatment to impulsivity is well supported. However, research differentiating between emotional and physical maltreatment and impulsivity is lacking, particularly with regard to facets of trait impulsivity. Thus, the current study examined the links between childhood emotional and physical maltreatment and current impulsivity traits of positive and negative urgency, lack of perseverance, lack of premeditation, and sensation seeking in emerging adults. Furthermore, effects of maltreatment are known to differ by the gender of the parent and the gender of the child. Thus, differences between parent-emerging adult child gender dyads were also examined. Results suggested both physical and emotional maltreatment were associated with negative urgency across the parent–child gender dyads. Emotional maltreatment and physical maltreatment differed in relation to impulsivity facet across parent and child gender. Results contribute to a knowledge base to use in future exploration of emotional and physical maltreatment outcomes and targets of intervention.

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Are perceptions of grandparenthood related to family and life satisfaction? A study with emerging adults

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships ◽

10.1177/0265407520981152 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026540752098115

Author(s):

Isabel Miguel ◽

Alexandra M. Araújo ◽

Sandra Fernandes ◽

Luísa Carneiro ◽

Paula Fernandes

Keyword(s):

Life Satisfaction ◽

Emerging Adults ◽

Family Relationships ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Emerging Adult ◽

Well Being ◽

Family Satisfaction ◽

Self Report ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Adult Grandchildren

Given the crucial role that grandparents play in the upbringing and well-being of their grandchildren, research regarding the perceived importance of grandparents for their emerging adult grandchildren is of particular relevance. This study examined the relations between perceived grandparents’ roles and family and life satisfaction in Portuguese emerging adults. Participants (N = 387), aged 18–25, completed a structured self-report questionnaire. Findings of structural equation modeling showed that emerging adults’ perceptions of grandparental roles of counselor, enjoying the relationship, and indulgence are positively related to their family and life satisfaction. The mediation analysis showed that family satisfaction mediated the relation between perceptions of grandparents acting as counselors and the life satisfaction of emerging adult grandchildren. Implications of family relationships and grandparenting in the context of emerging adulthood are discussed.

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