Search

This article focuses on South African teenage girls' engagement with pornography. Using a decolonial approach and drawing upon new feminist materialism, this study focuses on the ways in which bodies, gender and sexuality configure to produce and constrain girls' capacities for sexual expression. The paper makes three claims. First, the article turns away from a one-sided representation of girls as only possible to know through the lens of sexual suffering while challenging childhood sexual innocence. Second, the online pornographic field is situated in a gendered and racialised system of organisation whereby the perfect body is naturalised as an esteemed object of desire. Third, the desire for the perfect, slim, blemish-free, hairless body through self-surveillance constricts capacities in line with normative standards of female beauty. A decolonial porn assemblage is harnessed to illustrate the contradictions produced as girls both desire and object to idealised bodies that are naturalised through heterosexual and racialised hierarchies. The paper concludes by considering the implications of approaching girls' engagement with pornography in relation to the expansion and limitation of their capacities and the body as an intense site of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores students', preservice teachers' and inservice teachers' perceptions of the contributions and challenges of using participatory visual methodologies (PVM) to enhance HIV education in rural schools. Drawing on findings from three research projects conducted in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, four positive contributions are identified: 1) novelty, fun and engagement; 2) amplifying youth voices; 3) the facilitation of teachers' reflexive learning; and 4) the production of local resources in under-resourced schools. Challenges include: 1) limited technology access; 2) teacher discomfort; and 3) resistance to PVM integration. Teachers and young people, especially in under resourced rural settings, can benefit from integrating such methodologies into their responses to HIV and AIDS. However, sustainable integration must rely on choosing the most appropriate participatory visual methodologies given the technological resources available in school. The paper concludes with recommendations to optimise participatory visual methodologies integration into rural school-based HIV responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the growing body of literature on sexuality education in South Africa, researchers have highlighted how teachers may face, or themselves be, barriers to the implementation of rights-based comprehensive sexuality education. Important issues with regard to educators are: firstly, the social and discursive space within which educators are located; and secondly, the complex emotional and psychic investments that educators take up within particular discourses and practices. This paper explores, through a psychosocial reading of an interview extract with a particular educator based in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, how discursive and psychic concerns are sutured within the complex subjectivity of the educator as the medium for sexual education in schools. Specifically, it highlights the numerous ways in which feminine sexuality and desire may be avoided, denied and silenced. Even when feminine desire is specifically evoked as in this case, it is done so in a way that ensures social and cultural respectability, thereby reproducing shame narratives that form and maintain traditional gender discourses. Our analysis demonstrates how engaging with educators as subjects with their own sexual history and psychic dynamics, and as individuals with raced, gendered and classed identities, is a potentially transformative perspective for effective sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details findings from an evaluation of a gendertransformative sexual and reproductive health and rights group education programme facilitated with young men aged 15-24 years in South Africa. A total of 475 young men participated in the group education programme. A self-administered pre- and postquestionnaire survey was conducted with a sample of the participants, and focus group discussions were facilitated. A total of 265 young men completed both the pre and post-questionnaires. Findings from the surveys as well as the focus group discussions showed positive changes in gender equitable attitudes, contraception and condom use. Results indicate that the young men who participated in the group education learned to identify harmful gender norms and actively questioned these constructs both within their personal lives and in the broader community. The intervention enabled some participants to envision alternative versions of masculinity and femininity, thus enabling them to adopt a new way of being, with transformed attitudes concerning household and gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research has documented unsatisfactory sexual and reproductive health (SRH) awareness among young people in South Africa, understanding of gender differences in access to and evaluation of SRH information is limited. This paper concerned itself with men and women's informal sources and content of SRH, and gendered divergences around accessibility, evaluation, and impact of such information. Fifty sexual history narrative interviews and twenty-five narrative interviews with women were conducted with participants purposively sampled from a range of ages, cultural and racial backgrounds, and in urban and rural sites across five provinces in South Africa. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. While young women were more likely to learn about SRH information from family members, they also reported greater regulation concerning their sexuality. This could enhance stigma surrounding women's sexuality and hinder open communication. Men predominantly learned about sex through pornography and peers, which was reported to encourage sexual prowess to the neglect of practising safer sex. Lack of adequate SRH instruction for young people as revealed through the narratives had significant and often negative implications for men and women's early safer sex behaviours. In response to these insights, recommendations are offered to strengthen informal sources of SRH awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexuality education forms part of the national school curricula of most sub-Saharan African countries, yet risk-related sexual behaviour among young people continues to fuel the HIV pandemic in this part of the world. One of the arguments put forward to explain why sexuality education seems to have had little impact on sexual risk-taking is that existing curricula have neglected to take into account the complexity of the social, cultural and gender norms that influence the behaviour of school-going young people in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past few years, the Department of Basic Education in South Africa has recognised the need to provide guidance to teachers on the content, pedagogical processes and messages that are relevant to their specific context. This paper critically reflects on findings from a literature-based study conducted to identify the cognitive and social factors influencing the behaviour of school-going young people in South Africa and the risk and protective factors that might be particular to their circumstances. The findings provide helpful guidelines about the development, content and implementation of sexuality education curricula more likely to be relevant in contexts of serious poverty and disadvantage. Although based on the South African literature, the findings may also offer useful lessons for curriculum designers in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehending praxis is a critical step in developing interventions that can have a real-world impact on people's lives. In this paper, we reflect on the lessons learned in the development of a curriculum for young people living in informal settlements in eThekwini, who are exposed to numerous vulnerabilities, including HIV-related risks associated with precarious urban livelihoods. Behavioural interventions have not led to commensurate reductions in HIV incidence, and the impact of these approaches remains regulated by numerous contextual conditions affecting those participating. Our collaborative project tested the impact of implementing a combination of the well-tested gender transformation intervention, Stepping Stones, with a new livelihood transformation curriculum, Creating Futures, among young people in eThekwini's informal settlements. Creating Futures was grounded in the theory and practice of sustainable livelihoods, but equally in the experience of the multi-disciplinary project team members who have conducted both research and development work among youth in the eThekwini area. Our approach was founded on the work of Doug Kirby, and we are indebted to him for his inputs. His logical model approach ensured that the team remained orientated to specific curriculum outcomes. Analysis of the results at 12 months post-baseline indicates positive livelihood outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclusion of counter-normative sexualities, in their teaching and responses they privileged heterosexuality as legitimate and natural and same-sex sexualities as deviant and Other. Second, teachers' discourses construct queer youth not only as innocent and childlike but also as hypersexual and rebellious – requiring discipline and intervention. These constructions link closely to discourses of pity and tolerance, or blame when counter-normative sexualities were expressed. Finally, despite heterosexuality being privileged in the classroom, teachers' and pupils' questions about gender and sexuality diversity suggest the need for a more defined and inclusive curriculum sexuality education curriculum. Findings justify concern about how counter-normative sexualities are addressed in the sexuality education classroom and advocate for improvement in teaching and learning about counter-normative sexualities in South African secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School-based sexuality education remains a key response to the HIV epidemic. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study, this study explores how young people engage with sexuality and HIV- and AIDS-related education as it is delivered through the Life Orientation (LO) learning area in South Africa, in order to understand the dynamics that support or hinder engagement. Focus group discussions were held with Grade 9 and 11 learners (aged 14–18 years) from 16 randomly selected public secondary schools across three provincial districts. Results show that enjoyment of LO education was related to perceived relevance and distinctiveness, informal lesson delivery, subjective assessment standards and seemingly minimal effort. However, the perception of reduced effort tarnished the status of LO and young people’s motivation to participate. Learner engagement is influenced by a variety of cognitive, affective and behavioural pathways including internalised discourse around HIV and AIDS, gender and sexuality; the quality of youth–educator relations and teaching competencies; peer pressures; and broader cultural dynamics. The cultivation of a learning environment in which young people share and debate their views promotes engagement and critical thinking. In-service and pre-service educator training, structured activity plans and monitoring are recommended to advance the content knowledge and pedagogy of educators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]