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Globally, the appraisal of educators remains a contested issue as the process, which aims to provide support and development to educators, is generally considered a punitive measure for educators. Within the South African context, the Integrated Quality Management System is used to evaluate educators. Drawing on Fraser's theories of social justice, this article explores the perspectives of 11 educators regarding educator developmental appraisal in post-apartheid South Africa as a catalyst for social (in)justice. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using critical discourse analysis. This article highlights the importance of social justice practices in enhancing learner achievement and foregrounds the (in)justices often witnessed during the appraisal process. Findings reveal that the developmental appraisal process has the potential to promote social justice; however, contextual factors seem to be hindering the successful implementation of the appraisal process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parenting plays an important role in the socialisation of children and youth, and ineffective parenting has been associated with multiple negative social and health outcomes among young people. Any attempt to design contextually relevant multi-system interventions to improve parenting practices and reduce negative child and adolescent outcomes must be based on an understanding of how contextual factors influence parenting practices. A phenomenological reflective lifeworld approach was utilised to explore parents' lived experiences of multiple intersecting socio-demographic factors and community social processes that impact on their parenting practices. This study was framed by social disorganisation theory rooted within an ecological framework. Using purposive sampling, data was collected from 47 parents comprising local residents and stakeholders (36 focus group participants and 7 individual interview participants) in a low-income community in Cape Town, South Africa, Thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed various socio-demographic factors characteristic of community disorder that intersect with parenting and contributes to neglectful parenting. These factors include socio-economic disadvantage that leads to parental stress for predominantly single parent families, and a lack of formal and informal social control compounded by community disorder. This highlights the need for multi-level parenting interventions that address both community structural and social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach in a low-income setting. Using the SCRATCHMAPS project as a case example and with literature control, we show that CBPR is influenced by dynamics relating to knowledge and power, resources and power, participation and power, as well as community dynamics and researchmethodology. We conclude that the CBPR approach offers a number of opportunities to conduct rigorous and trustworthy research and to contribute to individual and community development, despite associated difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of a suitable measure to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children and adolescents in South Africa, led to the use of the KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire, which was developed and standardised in Europe. The current study is part of a broader study conducted in the Western Cape, which used the KIDSCREEN-52 to explore the influence of exposure to community violence on the subjective HRQoL of a sample of South African adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the reliability and construct validity of the KIDSCREEN-52 in a South African context. The broader study employed stratified interval criterion sampling to select 565 Grade 9 learners, aged 14-18. Participants were selected from six public schools in areas specified by the South African government as comprising key nodal areas in terms of crime in the Western Cape. The dataset for the current study comprised all participants (N = 565) of the primary study. As the initial step in validation of the KIDSCREEN-52 in South Africa, the current study examined its factor structure by means of exploratory factor analysis, using principal component analysis with oblimin rotations. It also assessed the internal consistency reliability of each of the scales, using Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 10 factors as identified by previous studies, with some deviation in the loadings of the last three factors. Items of two scales ("Feelings" and "About Yourself") divided into three scales, and "Bullying" items were not sufficiently presented in the factor solution. Internal consistency of the measure was shown to be acceptable to good, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.76 to 0.81 for the 10 scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]