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School violence is a global concern (UNESCO, 2022) with prolific consequences due to its lifelong psychological impact. Violence will continue to afflict human populations due to its underlying psychology, but this can be tempered by culture and other environmental factors. Violence is part of human nature and has an evolutionary basis rooted in our biology and is expressed psychologically through behaviour, thinking, and emotional expression (Buss, 2019; Zhang-James, et al., 2018). There are many forms, including physical and sexual assault, bullying and cyberbullying, public shaming, sexual harassment, suicidality, verbal and emotional abuse, and property theft. Although violence is ubiquitous, it is distributed disproportionally, as is obvious when considering demographics such as age, race, ethnicity, geographic location, socioeconomic status, gender, and environmental disparities (e.g., pollution, noise, and access to essentials). A prime example of environmental disparities is the current crisis affecting South Africa's electrical grid and its effects on behavior (Khumalo, 2023). These facts reveal challenges that can be addressed in order to reduce violence overall and in specific settings, and concomitantly reduce disparities and enhance social justice (Khumalo, 2019). We address these issues and provide recommendations for amelioration in the context of school violence in South Africa. While school violence is an increasing problem and challenge for all stakeholders (Le Mottee & Kelly, 2017; Ngidi & Kaye, 2022), Nelson Mandela reminds us that "We owe our children -- the most vulnerable citizens in any society - a life free from violence and fear."

The purpose of this paper is to analyse an innovative teaching and learning practice in which pre-service student teachers at the CPUT used digital stories to reflect on their experiences of diversity in their classroom. Managing diverse classrooms is one of the main challenges for all teachers. Digital storytelling can help manage such classrooms. It facilitates the convergence of four student-centered learning strategies: student engagement, reflection for deep learning, project-based learning, and the effective integration of technology into teaching. A qualitative research approach was employed whereby twenty-nine written stories and a recording of a focus-group interview with purposively selected participants from the group was the data collection technique. The results indicate that the digital storytelling approach exposed the students to new media literacies which prepared them for the rich and diverse contexts which they will encounter in their teaching.

This article explores how participation in a community of learning supported transformation on a personal and professional level in a Master's programme at a South African university. It draws on the concept of transformational learning in the professional preparation of educational psychologists, and how such learning plays out in the development of critical perspectives and shifts in personal paradigms. We report on a two-year ethnographic study that involved 13 of a total of 15 students enrolled for an Educational Psychology Master's course. One of us (CW) acted as participant observer in the study and recorded the experiences of the participants through reflective letters that included symbolic metaphors, semi-structured group focus interviews, as well as a verification questionnaire. In our analysis and interpretation we used the metaphor of the Baobab tree, "the tree turned upside down", because it is known for its resilience, holding capacity and continuous growth. We found the image to powerfully represent the dynamics of professional preparation and transformation in higher education.

This paper is based on an ethnographic study conducted between 2012 and 2014 with a group of 64 boys and girls aged 6-10, all attending the same township primary school in South Africa. The paper explores how the young children construct gender "boundaries" and "police" gender "transgressions" on the school playground during break-time. The findings illustrate the ways in which these young boys and girls learn to "do" gender through practices of inclusion, exclusion and "policing" during play. The findings challenge dominant teacher constructions of the playground as a "free space" and demonstrate how the playground operates as a site of learning gender through forms of "policing" that involve boys bullying girls and boys who do not conform to gender norms. The findings raise implications for the development of curriculum material and teaching practices that would assist primary schoolteachers to reflect more deeply on young learners' personal experiences and perspectives around gender and play.

Transformation and the embracing of diversity remains a major challenge at South African universities. This article reflects on the contradictory nature of first-year university students' experiences of diversity and highlights the difficult terrain that students need to navigate, often with hardly any preparation for the university environment based on their schooling experiences. Using the capabilities approach as the guiding theoretical framework, the article interprets these contradictory diversity experiences in the first year in light of data on encounters with diversity at high school. It draws on the results of a large-scale mixed methods study. Qualitative data, using focus group and visual methodologies, was collected from 270 first-year students in 2009 and 2010. In addition, a total of 2.816 high school learners selected from a diverse sample of 20 local schools completed a mainly quantitative survey that included various items about interaction with diverse peers and the broader community as well as engagement with complex and diverse ideas. The school-level data provides important contextual background for understanding and interpreting students' experiences. Such understanding is critical if we are to confront and challenge the contradictory diversity experiences during the first year at university.

This article explores teacher clusters as possible mechanisms for teacher development in dealing with a number of the difficulties facing education in the South African context. It describes the benefits and challenges experienced by primary school teachers who are involved in a self-sustaining teacher cluster (development and support group). This cluster is unique in that it focuses on psychosocial issues confronting the teachers in their classrooms. The study uses an interpretive qualitative approach to report on the experiences of the members of the cluster in an attempt to extract some lessons that may be useful to practitioners in the South African context. This study highlights the value of using a long-term developmental and organic approach to develop a community of practice for teacher support and development.

The concept of anomie is one of the classics of sociological theory. Developed by scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, the concept refers to the absence of clear social norms and values and to a lack of sense of social regulation. However, whereas Merton focused on features of relative deprivation that cause anomie, Durkheim was primarily interested in the link between rapid social change and social anomie. According to the latter, normative regulation is threatened with being undermined and people are likely to lack the social and psychological means for adjustment in times of rapid social change. Drawing on survey data from the South African General Household Survey polled in 2002, the article examines the ethnical differences in levels of social anomie in the South African society. In order to do so, we, first, place the South African levels of anomie into comparative context. In a second step, we look at the race specific levels of anomie. Third, we investigate whether the differences in anomie between the races are related to the still existing socio-economic inequalities or whether race can be regarded as an independent factor that impacts on anomie. Finally we scrutinize to what extent socio-economic factors account for different levels of anomie within the races.

Uses the Social-Religious-Political Scale, the G.D. Wilson and J.R. Patterson Conservatism Scale, and the South African Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale to examine the relationship of conservative political attitudes to intelligence. Found no significant relationship between conservatism and high or low intelligence in this sample of 100 South African students. (CH)

Reports findings of a study examining the opinions and awareness level of South African, Israeli, and United States undergraduates about conflicts in either the Middle East or South Africa. Finds religious and racial characteristics determining differences in knowledge level and political support. Reveals South African Blacks and U.S. students especially uninformed. (DB)

Compares relationship between family size and academic achievement of children from broken and intact families among Black African Xhosa-speaking children between the ages of 13 and 17. Results indicate a negative relationship between family size and academic achievement, regardless of broken or intact families. (Author/NL)

Reports a study of 1,021 urban and rural Black children in Transkei, South Africa between the ages of 13 and 17. Findings showed scores on the Standard Seven external examinations were significantly lower among children from polygynous families and that these families were prone to conflict, emotional stress, and anxiety. Suggests teachers can play a positive role. (NL)

The long career of hiatus – as a heuristic and archaeological reality – in southern Africa's past demonstrates how episodes of interruption (which differs from rupture) offer insight into expulsion. I emphasize the cadences of interruptions, associations with movement (or lack thereof) and violence, and the role of non-human participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intersectionality has gained a great deal of academic purchase within the social sciences but there is still a need for further conceptual and methodological innovation and clarity. As such, this study uses paid domestic labour as a case study to apply Billig et al.'s (Ideological dilemmas: A social psychology of everyday thinking, 1988) notion of ideological dilemmas to explore the common sense that paid domestic workers draw on to position themselves as women and workers. The analysis highlights how participants use (often contradictory) themes of common sense when speaking about their place in the household through dilemmas of servitude, belonging, and intimacy. Speakers draw on gendered ideology, not as a fixed set of ideas, but rather as a mobile discursive resource that can be deployed in situ, allowing them to justify, subvert, and evaluate social positions of domestic womanhood. The study provides both a conceptual window and a robust method for studying nonessentialist intersectionality through ideological dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since South Africa's first democratic election in 1994, the student leadership profile has changed dramatically at historically white universities (HWUs). Given the postapartheid South African context where this study was conducted, and how participants navigate multiple role identities within a multicultural setting, the article elucidates student leaders' self‐reflection on their role identity and draws on identity theory from the discipline of social psychology as its theoretical framework, while referencing the roles model from leadership studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are many factors during pregnancy and labor that influence women's acceptability of maternal healthcare. Nevertheless, the concept of acceptability of maternal healthcare has unfortunately not been clearly defined and remains difficult to assess, affecting its implications and approaches from maternal health perspectives. In this study, we proposed a practical definition of maternal healthcare acceptability and developed a tool to measure maternal healthcare acceptability from patients' perspective at a selected health sub-district in South Africa. Methods: We applied known techniques to develop measurement tools in health settings. The concept development drew from the literature review leading to the proposed definition of maternal healthcare acceptability which was then refined and validated by experts through Delphi technique. Other techniques included specification of concept constructs; selection of indicators; formation of indices; measurement tool/scale construction; and testing of reliability and validity. Factor analysis and simple arithmetic equation were performed on secondary and primary datasets respectively. Results: Experts in the field reached a consensual definition of maternal healthcare acceptability. Factor analysis revealed three factors retained to predict maternal healthcare acceptability indices, namely provider, healthcare and community. Structural equation model showed good fit (CFI = 0.97), with good reliability and validity. Hypothesis testing confirmed that items and their corresponding factors were related (p < 0.01). Simple arithmetic equation was recommended as alternative method to measure acceptability when factor analysis was not applicable. Conclusion: This study provides new insights into defining and measuring acceptability of maternal healthcare with significant contributions on existing theories and practices on this topic and practical applications not only for maternal health but also across diverse health disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy makers' ultimate goal is to deliver the highest possible level of population welfare. Economists investigate the effect of socio-economic dimensions on wellbeing using unidimensional measures of life satisfaction or happiness as proxies for welfare. However, social psychologists have shown that wellbeing is a much broader construct and that an intervention may have opposite effects on its components. Unidimensional measures may hide these patterns. Most literature focuses on high-income countries. The growing evidence from low- and middle-income countries also largely relies on standard unidimensional measures. This study tests the validity of this reliance by exploring the wellbeing construct of South African women, quantitatively analysing textual data from focus group discussions to investigate whether unidimensional measures are appropriate in this context. It provides evidence against the indiscriminate use of unidimensional wellbeing measures. Cluster and correspondence analysis of the transcripts show that relevant domains of women's wellbeing include relations with others, autonomy, and a perception of control over their environment (environmental mastery). Results also reveal that participants have a relational view of themselves, distinct from the individuated view predominant in the US and Europe and the collectivist view found in East Asia. Such relational self-perception modifies study participants' wellbeing construct in ways that are important for policy implementation and evaluation. For example, women's autonomy and environmental mastery rely on shared peer-identity to redefine rules and meet challenges. Wellbeing measures for policy evaluation would benefit from incorporating these insights to meaningfully measure progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 3 on 'good health and wellbeing' in South Africa and other contexts that exhibit similar concepts of wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mothering in the context of a South African high-risk community has undue complexities. Apart from the compounding risks for families and the reality of many "poverty traps," when mothers' personal and parenting competencies within this context are compromised, then the entire family suffers. There is a need for the development and evaluation of a wellness program for mothers living in high-risk communities in the South African context. Moreover, scholars argue for a contextual understanding of structural conditions and, particularly, for the inclusion of a participatory and social justice approach to such program development. The aim of the program described in this paper was to strengthen the personal and parenting abilities of mothers living in a South African high-risk low-income community. We describe our modus operandi in combining research-generated academic information with contextual data obtained via participatory processes to inform the content and focus of the program. Additionally, thematic analysis of data obtained via a focus group discussion with social worker participants was used to identify prerequisite skills and competencies for this program to enhance mothers' well-being as well as appropriate parenting skills. We describe the content of the wellness program comprising concept mapping of four modules called Mattering; Mothering; Managing; and, Mentoring located within the theoretical framework of Community Psychology. Guidelines from various parenting programs were incorporated as best practices toward effective implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role that social group processes, and multiple group membership in particular, play in supporting resilience and post‐traumatic growth following the experience of violence and abuse. Drawing on social identity theorizing, we develop and test a model that (a) predicts an association between multiple group membership and positive outcomes of resilience and post‐traumatic growth, and (b) explores mechanisms, of personal control and identification with anti‐violence activists, through which group membership might exert this effect. This model was tested using data from a sample of predominantly White South African adults recruited through numerous sources including a non‐government organisation that supports victims of violence and abuse (N = 112). Results showed that multiple group membership was positively related to post‐traumatic growth and provided a basis for enhanced personal control and identification with activists. Personal control also mediated the relationship between multiple group membership and resilience. We discuss the implications for theory and practice and suggest there is value in working with social group memberships following trauma to support recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without a doubt, increasing economic and social inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa continues to trouble communities and intergroup interaction. It also explicitly identified the mostly Indian community as instigating racially motivated attacks against Black community members. Even those sub-disciplines - social and community psychology - that lay some claim to interest and engagement with the social and political world, must confront their own epistemological and methodological limitations. Keywords: Apartheid; Phoenix; South Africa; violence EN Apartheid Phoenix South Africa violence 481 484 4 10/26/21 20211201 NES 211201 What happens when people revolt against each other?. [Extracted from the article]

Research methods play an important role in the outcome of research projects and publication, which contribute to various aspects of a country's development and well-being. This study explored the current use of research methods in psychological research within South Africa. The South African Journal of Psychology was chosen to represent a sample for this investigation. A systematised review was used to discern what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics. Thus, 116 articles published in the South African Journal of Psychology from 2013 to 2017 were categorised. Research articles in the selected sample generally provided fewer details with regard to the applied methodology. Therefore, only the reported methodology in these articles is documented in this study. The type of research methods used in the South African Journal of Psychology focused mainly on quantitative and qualitative methods. These methods were typically applied to 10 research topics of which Social Psychology was most dominant, and Education and Learning least dominant. Data collection mostly consisted of questionnaires or interviews using samples of convenience with various techniques of data analysis. The results are discussed from the perspective of a national and an international study to highlight South Africa's research position with regard to international publications. Overall, this investigation shows the uniqueness of South African research, areas for future study and research development, considering international trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decolonial impulse in psychology has manifested across a variety of domains, perhaps most notably psychological theory and approaches to research methodology. In this article, we focus on how decoloniality can reshape approaches to teaching and learning. We present a case study of how we recurriculated, from 1999 to 2020, three community psychology modules using a decolonial lens. We describe three phases in the development of community psychology teaching at a university in South Africa--"Little Oxford in the veld," "Going walkabout," and "New voices." In each case, we detail the "course content," our pedagogical approach, and how students responded, and try to identify what lessons can be learnt for a more explicitly decolonial mode of teaching and learning. We conclude by asserting that to foster decoloniality among students, we have to be cognizant of the ways in which they have for a long time been taught using Euro-centric lenses and frames of knowing and therefore the process of unlearning may be slow and somewhat painful. However, we see this as a necessary step toward decolonization, as epistemic colonization was and continues to be a violent project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helena Pedersen's powerful keynote address poses the question: What prevents education from becoming a transformative force in times of 'omnicide', that is, 'the annihilation of everything'? She locates at least part of the response in 'institutional anxiety', which constitutes a (social-) psychological barrier to radical change. In particular, she discusses anxiety related to the moral standing of non-human animals as a threat to human exceptionalism in educational practice and research. Institutional anxiety, as I show in my discussion of a recent manifestation at a university in South Africa, also occurs in post-liberation societies, when 'university teachers confront' or consider confronting 'their own colleagues with requests for deconstruction of the anthropocentric infrastructure of their own workplace' (Pedersen), colleagues they know to have been historically marginalised or disenfranchised. However, as I hope to make clear in my response, there are some ways of confrontation that are less divisive than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, (HIV/AIDS) has been a cause for concern in the health sector for decades. However, a scientific cure for the condition is still at large. HIV/AIDS has been widely considered extremely deadly especially in South Africa where the prevalence rate is at approximately 12.6% of the population (Statistical Release 2017). In recent years, approaches to HIV/AIDS management shun discrimination and stigmatisation and reinforce support and acceptance of those living with the disease. As a result, health practitioners, activists, and other stakeholders such as non-profit organisations have used various discursive strategies to discourage stigmatisation of people living with HIV/AIDS. Considering the foregoing, this paper analyses some selected South African online newspaper adverts in terms of how they discourse the phenomenon of living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The objective is to analyse how selected HIV/AIDS adverts attempt to offset and dismantle long-held discriminatory beliefs and practices. The paper draws theoretical inspiration from Billig's (1996) rhetorical approach to social psychology and a range of rights-based approaches. The findings reveal that the discourse and rhetoric of advertising are instrumental in promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and eradicating discrimination and stigmatisation of people living with the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Father–daughter incest (FDI) is one of the most prohibited sexual acts and is increasingly becoming a widespread problem in South Africa. Specifically, the study explored factors contributing to incest, how incidences of incest become known, different ways that incest affects the offender, the victim and the family as well as how professionals intervene in incest cases. The literature was reviewed to fully understand incest within the Western and African context, the relationship of father-daughter in the incest act, what influences the occurrence of father–daughter incest and what measures are taken to intervene in father–daughter incest cases. A qualitative approach was used in this study and focused on exploring the psychosocial effects of incest on the victims and the offender as well as the family's perspectives affected by such experiences. Systems theory, psychoanalytic and trauma theory formed the theoretical framework of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, South African university student protests drew critical attention to the state of higher education in the country. Newspaper reports of the student protests were pervasive. Reports of the violence that characterised parts of the protests dominated the news despite the students’ impact on the positive changes in higher education. Using a thematic analysis, this article interrogates student representation in newspapers from the inception of the protests to the end of the 2015 academic year. Four themes were identified: students as destructive vandals, violators of the rights of others, law-breakers, and agents of transformation. Results indicate that newspaper reports of the violence overshadowed reports of the positive changes that the student protestors catalysed, and in so doing, newspaper reports during this time delegitimised the students as agents of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout known history, Ubuntu has promoted and continues to promote social coherence. Although the South African government, civil society and private sector have placed great faith in the idea of Ubuntu to build social cohesion, there has been limited progress in this regard. Similarly, in the educational field, there has been limited progress as old systems have taken time to dismantle and for old/new ones to develop and become established. Authentic and original, Afrocentric and phenomenological, critical and creative thought and action seems needed for the ongoing transformation of philosophy and psychology in particular. The goal of the investigation was to re-explore our experiences of Ubuntu with special focus on creative, socially coherent perspectives. The common experiential theme was that Ubuntu guaranteed an infinity of social promotion resources, that much has been achieved, much was possible, and much still needed to be done to promote social coherence. This theme was unpacked and discussed from Afrocentric, experiential, cosmological, epistemological, axiological and practical perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decolonisation of higher education in South Africa is closely linked to questions of knowledge production. The epistemic violence of the colonial encounter has put into question the possibilities and modes of doing research in marginalised communities. In this article, I argue that praxis in community social psychology can lead to more relevant and just research methods, especially when rooted in liberation thinking. In the South African and African context, this requires an engagement with the particularities of Blackness and the Black experience. Drawing on examples of participatory action research projects with young Africans using Photovoice methods, and the establishment of the Black Academic Caucus at the University of Cape Town, the article shows the links between praxis and epistemic justice as exercised within the cultural practices of the university, and between researchers and participants from marginalised communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attentive to a psychology underlying South Africa’s democratic imaginations, I describe how Nelson Mandela’s intervention at a critical moment of conflict management, along with mechanisms such as at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Moral Regeneration Movement, invoked and enacted a humanising ethos. Centred on the ideas of restraint, empathy, emotional proximity, witnessing, and fluid generative subjectivities, the humanising ethos was awakened to support the process of reconciliation, social justice, and the making of inclusive and socially just communities. Inspired by a decolonial attitude, and in part successfully enacted in support of the country’s liberal democratic ideals, the elaboration of this psychology has been limited by ongoing socio-economic disparities and a ruling psychology that naturalises extractive relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the effort to address behavioural risk factors – which contribute significantly to the global burden of disease – there is a growing movement in public health towards the use of interventions informed by behavioural science. These interventions have the benefit of being amenable to testing in randomised controlled trials, are cost-effective and, when scaled up, can have significant public health benefits. A subset of these interventions attempts to change behaviour by shifting social norms perception (what I think everyone else does and thinks). We surveyed the work on social norms intervention and considered its applicability to issues of public health in South Africa. Social norms interventions have widespread and significant potential to address issues of public health in South Africa; policymakers should look to these interventions as cost-effective tools to address key issues. More broadly, we advocate for an expansion of the use of behavioural science in developing public policy in South Africa. Significance: • The application of behavioural science to issues of public health will contribute to evidence-based policy efforts in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on prejudice seeks to understand and transform inaccurate beliefs about others. Indeed, historically such research has offered a cautionary tale of the biased nature of human cognition. Recently, however, this view has been challenged by work defending the essential rationality of intergroup perception, a theme captured controversially in Jussim and colleagues' (2009) research on the 'unbearable accuracy of stereotyping'. The present paper argues that in its own terms the 'rationalist turn' in socio-cognitive research on stereotyping presents an important challenge to the prejudice tradition, raising troubling questions about its conceptual and empirical foundations. However, it also argues for the necessity of transcending those terms. By focusing on the correspondence between individual beliefs and the supposedly 'objective' characteristics of others, we neglect the historical and discursive practices through which the social realities that we 'perceive' are actively constructed and institutionalized. We mask their social origins, contested and perspectival nature, relativity, and relationship to wider structures of power. By implication, moving beyond the Allportian perspective that has dominated both the prejudice tradition and the emerging stereotype accuracy paradigm, we may now need to prioritize other kinds of questions. Reversing Allport's famous definition of prejudice, it may now be time to ask: How, and with what consequences, does 'thinking ill of others' become sufficiently warranted? How does such thinking become part of institutionalized relations of power and an accepted way of perceiving, evaluating and treating others? What should social psychologists be doing to challenge this state of affairs? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's phoenix rising from the ashes of apartheid Psychology: The Psychological Society of South Africa 25 years on Did I ever imagine, as a Psychology graduate student in the 1970s that someday I could be a part of organised Psychology in South Africa, or that students of colour could ever hope to one day feature in the ranks of academia outside of the "bush colleges" that we were forced to attend if we desired a university education? As students of Psychology at the University of Durban-Westville, an apartheid creation specifically for Indians, we heard from the head of the Psychology department how he was refused membership of the erstwhile national Psychology association on the grounds of race. [Extracted from the article]

When I was first approached to provide my recollections of the launch of Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) at the University of the Western Cape in 1994, I immediately knew that this seemingly simple request was likely to exact greater demands on me than what was immediately perceptible. The three key role-players at the Psychology and Societal Transformation Conference represented different political currents within South African psychology at the time - the Psychological Association of South Africa (PASA), the Organization for Appropriate Social Services in South Africa (OASSSA), and the Psychology and Apartheid Committee. While this was a momentous occasion for organized professional psychology in South Africa, it was also clear that a political trust deficit existed within the terrain, and that a complex architecture for the future of South African psychology was being negotiated. [Extracted from the article]

In South Africa, health promotion related to HIV/AIDS has been characterised as a component of public health prevention. It has heavily utilised global health ideology to construct promotional messages that rely on neoliberal models of individual, responsible health citizenship. However, after nearly 30 years of public health messaging, there have been only minor shifts in the country’s HIV prevalence rates; it has become apparent that there is disconnect between policy, programmes, and target audiences. Debates about where this disconnect occurs tend to focus on the role of problems in biomedical knowledge translation or with structural inequalities that lead to health inequity. As debates increase, artists involved in health have emerged to address an additional reason: audience interpellation. In this article, I interrogate relationships between health promotion ideology and processes of interpellation. I suggest that disconnect between the two has roots in the tone of programming, the ways sociality is constructed within health promotion, and the kind of subject which global prevention programmes seek to constitute. Using a case study, I illustrate how public health ideology is made actionable through arts practice. While conventional health promotion programmes address populations in a way that allows individuals to distance themselves, members of South Africa’s arts sector have worked to integrate prevention and care in a way that bolsters interpellation through making messagespersonal. The case study presents one performance but is informed by my broader research with over 20 theatrical groups conducted during 18 months of fieldwork. Analysis of the production reveals that artists act as mediators between population-level public health messages and individuals through the embodied technologies of applied theatre. However, I argue that artists also create space for participants to reimagine configurations of care, responsibility, and intimacy within health practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reflects on professional boundaries and the identity of counselling psychology in South Africa. Topics discussed include the role of counselling psychology to give impetus to the social justice and to the mental health care needs of the country; funding for the work of counselling psychology in the country; and the role of Counselling psychology in community and public health interventions.

In intervening in social challenges impacting local communities, Western forms of dispute/conflict resolution have been critiqued for imparting norms, values and practices that marginalise worldviews of indigenous people. From a decolonizing stance, indigenous scholars have emphasised the need for recovery of 'lost' values, beliefs and practices to advance indigenous knowledge. We highlight some of the conceptual challenges associated with applying 'indigenous knowledge' and culture-specific 'indigenous methodologies' to a marginalised peri-urban, ethnically plural township community situated on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. In embracing the mutuality of indigenous and Western knowledge forms, we explore three elements: the community story, relationality and process in relation to initial engagements with our study community. We attempt to transcend the dualism between 'Western' epistemologies and 'indigenous knowledge' through these 'bridging concepts'. What is offered is not a formula or model but an orientation that aims to foster mutual learning through collaborative partnerships within and between communities and researchers with a view to inspiring possibilities for creative and meaningful solutions for violence prevention and dispute/conflict resolution. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advocates the concept of race trouble as a way of synthesizing variation in racial discourse, and as a way of studying how social interaction and institutional life continue to be organized by conceptions of 'race' and 'racism'. Our analysis of an online discussion at a South African University about the defensibility of a characterization of (black) student protesters as 'savages' revealed a number of familiar strategies: participants avoided explicit racism, denied racism, and denied racism on behalf of others. However, the aim of this analysis was not to identify the 'real' racism, but to show how race and racism were used in the interaction to develop perspectives on transformation in the institution, to produce social division in the University, and to create ambivalently racialized and racializing subject positions. We demonstrate how, especially through uses of deracialized discourse, participants' actions were observably shaped by the potential ways in which others could hear 'race' and 'racism'. Race trouble thus became manifest through racial suggestion, allusion, innuendo, and implication. We conclude with a call to social psychologists to study the ways in which meanings of 'race' and 'racism' are forged and contested in relation to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2004, South Africa has experienced thousands of local protests, many of them popular insurrections, which, taken together, represent a rebellion of the poor. Lack of service delivery has been the main issue, but protesting communities have also demanded the removal of corrupt officials, re-demarcation of political boundaries and employment. In terms of endurance and geographical spread, the movement is unprecedented. The article presents findings from a case study undertaken in Balfour, a small town outside Johannesburg. It argues for bridging studies of social class and social movements, justifies the concept ‘rebellion of the poor’ and proposes that the divide between employed workers and ‘the poor’ is best understood in terms of different relationships to the means and ends of protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Little is known about the help-seeking behaviour and barriers to care among people with depression in poor resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: This is a cross-sectional population-based study including 977 persons aged 18-40 living in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The prevalence of depression was investigated with the help of a questionnaire (the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview). Several socio-economic variables, statements on help-seeking and perceptions of earlier mental health care were included. Data collection was performed from March to July 2012. Results: The prevalence of depression was 31.4%. People aged 18-29 and those with no or low incomes were less likely to seek help. Promotive factors for help-seeking included having social support and tuberculosis comorbidity. Of all people with depression in this sample, 57% did not seek health care at all even though they felt they needed it. Of the variety of barriers identified, those of most significance were related to stigma, lack of knowledge of their own illness and its treatability as well as financial constraints. Limitation: Recall bias may be present and the people identified with depression were asked if they ever felt so emotionally troubled that they felt they should seek help; however, we do not know if they had depression at the time they referred to. Conclusions: Depression is highly prevalent among young adults in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa; however, many do not seek help. Health planners should increase mental health literacy in the communities and improve the competence of the health staff. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper responds to key aspects of Bill Dixon's article, Understanding 'Pointy Face': What is criminology for?¹ It suggests that criminology should unambiguously be 'for' social justice in South Africa's transhistorically unequal context. South African prison statistics are used as a conceptual shortcut to briefly highlight racialised constructions of crime, the criminal and the criminologist. A trans-disciplinary conceptual approach, as a more socially just way to understand violent crime in South Africa, is proposed. A methodological framework², which draws on the notion of cultural-structural-direct violence³ and intersectional theory4, is presented. These extend Bill Dixon's call for criminology to include history, structure, human psyche and biography5 and resonates with Biko Agozino's call for a 'counter-colonial' criminology.6 The paper ends by returning the Eurocentric gaze of most South African criminologists, calling them out on their denial about trans-historical violence that implicates 'Pale Face' in the violence of 'Pointy Face'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the distribution of antiretroviral therapy (ART) is still far from adequate, where such therapy is accessible, HIV has largely been transformed from a fatal to chronic infection. The South African government began a national ART rollout in 2003, providing ART free to medically qualifying individuals. Institutions caring for HIV-positive children have since seen a significant increase in the life expectancies of the children for whom they care. These institutions are experiencing a major transformation from their original role as a hospice for sick and dying patients to a children's home raising relatively healthy children with a chronic illness. This anthropologically based research was done in Johannesburg, South Africa, using a social survey and semi-structured interviews conducted with administrators and caregivers from local children's homes. The specific aim was to assess the current state of children's homes caring for HIV-positive children and the psychosocial challenges they face. The 23 homes included in this study cared for a total of 1091 children; 35% of the children were HIV positive with 73% on ART. The majority of homes were facing new and important challenges. Disclosing a child's HIV infection was difficult with only 35% of homes reporting a formal disclosure policy. Education was a concern with most homes expressing a serious need for access to more remedial and special needs schools. Caring for the psychological well-being of children was a challenge with 39% of homes having no access to any form of counseling. Finally, a majority of homes (65%) did not have a plan in place for the children's eventual move from the institution. This study concludes that the provision of antiretrovirals would be best accompanied by a number of medical, psychological, educational, and social services that help prepare HIV-positive children for futures they only recently have been able to expect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are moments in history where the imagined threat of satanism and the devil have been engendered by, and exacerbated, widespread social anxiety. This article looks at particular moments in which the ‘satanic peril’ emerged in the white South African imagination as moments of moral panic during which social boundaries were sharpened, patrolled, disputed, and renegotiated through public debate. Between 1989 and 1993, white politicians warned against the unholy trinity of ‘drugs, satanism and communism’, while white newspapers reported rumours of midnight orgies and the ritual consumption of baby flesh by secret satanic covens. From the bizarre to the macabre, the message became one of societal decay and a vulnerable youth. Moral panics betray a host of anxieties in the society, or segment of a society, in which they erupt. This article argues that the moral panic between 1989 and 1993, and the emergence of the ‘satanic peril’, betrays contextually specific anxieties surrounding the loss of power and shifts in class and cultural solidarity as white South Africa's social and geographic borders were transformed. We seek to elucidate the cultural changes in white South Africa during this period by illuminating the social, temporal and geographic boundaries that were disputed and renegotiated through the heightened and shifting discourse on satanism. With context provided by the satanic panics of the late 1970s in South Africa, and the transnational satanism scare of the 1980s, this article concentrates on South Africa's most virulent satanic panic, which occurred between 1989 and 1993. As this article shows, while the decade of the 1980s was marked by successive states of emergency and the deterioration of the edifice of apartheid, it began and ended with widespread alarm that Satan was making a bid for the control of white South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides a personal account of how discursive social psychology has been used to understand social and political change in South Africa and to reflect on the strengths and limitations of the approach. While celebrating the shift from the perception paradigm to the genuinely social constructionist focus on discursive interaction, the article also argues for an expanded focus on embodied action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orientation: Using humour in diversity contexts may relieve tension temporarily, but it happens at the expense of someone and indicates a defence against an unconscious anxiety dynamic. Research purpose: The purpose of this research was to describe the manifestation of humour as a defence mechanism against diversity anxiety. Motivation for the research: In working with diversity dynamics in South African organisations, consultants and participants often do not take humour seriously, let alone interpret the accompanying dynamic aspects. Working below the surface with humour may elicit much more and typical diversity dynamics worth investigating. Research design, approach and method: The research design was qualitative and descriptive, using multiple case studies and content analysis. Main findings: Humour is used as a defence against the anxiety experienced in diversity contexts caused by fear of the unknown within the self and the projection of the fear onto another identity group. Practical/managerial application: Diversity consultations interpreting humour as defence mechanism can provide added opportunities for exploring dynamics below the surface. Contribution/value-add: Deeper understanding of the unconscious dynamics of diversity humour could lead to meaningful interventions in organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orientation: The researcher applied role analysis from the systems psychodynamic perspective to executives in state departments to improve their awareness of the unconscious diversity dynamics that affect their roles. Research purpose: The purpose of this research was to describe the application of systems psychodynamic role analysis and to determine its trustworthiness in assisting executives to work effectively with conscious and unconscious diversity dynamics in their organisations. Motivation for the study: Executives generally struggle to understand the deeper meaning of diversity behaviour that manifests inside and around them, leading to conflict. Without understanding the unconscious meaning of the behaviour, organisations founder easily. Awareness of below-the-surface behaviour leads to insight and taking responsibility for diversity-related behaviours. Research design, approach and method: The researcher coached six executives in South African state departments over a period of 10 months. The coaching addressed and analysed the executives' organisational roles. She analysed the data using discourse analysis. Main findings: Themes relating to the diversity dynamics of gender, race, ethnicity, authority, disability, language, age, de-authorisation of diversity work and the coaching process emerged. The coaching assisted the executives to gain insights into below-the-surface diversity dynamics, to address diversity in a sustained manner and to take up their organisational roles more effectively. Practical/managerial implications: Coached executives will have a more objective and dynamic experience of diversity issues that manifest in organisations, between colleagues and within themselves. Contribution/value-add: Executive coaching from a systems psychodynamic perspective displays trustworthiness in improving participants' diversity awareness, especially with regard to gender, race, ethnicity and authorisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigated the relationships among sleep problems, learning difficulties and substance use in adolescence. Previous research suggests that these variables share an association with executive functioning deficits, and are intertwined. The sample comprised 427 adolescents (M age = 16 years) attending remedial schools and 276 adolescents (M age = 15 years) attending a mainstream school in Cape Town, South Africa. Participants completed anonymous self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that adolescents without learning difficulties were more likely to use tobacco, methamphetamine and cannabis, whereas those with learning difficulties engaged in more inhalant use. Adolescents who had more sleep problems were more likely to use tobacco, alcohol, methamphetamine, cannabis, inhalants, cocaine, ecstasy and any other illegal drug. Adolescents with learning difficulties had more sleep problems than those without learning difficulties. However, sleep problems remained independently associated with tobacco, cannabis and inhalant use when learning difficulties were taken into account. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Debates about the relationship between culture and gender, and the potential contradictions involved in simultaneously respecting both multicultural and feminist principles and values, have occupied an important place in theoretical discussion in the social sciences and humanities. This paper examines the relationship between gender and culture from the perspective of the psychotherapeutic encounter in a multicultural society, in this case contemporary South Africa. With the help of illustrative case material involving traumatically bereaved women who became subject to cultural ascriptions of maliciousness or murderousness, and where cultural beliefs potentially jeopardized gender rights, mental health and therapeutic recovery, the article argues that the relationship between gender and culture, viewed from a therapeutic perspective, can be seen to present complex conceptual and ethical challenges for the therapist. In addition, the structural, psychological and discursive positioning of the therapist and client in respect of warrants to speak and to accept or contest cultural constructions is recognized as implicated in particular kinds of therapeutic impasses. Both clinical and political concerns are discussed in order to illustrate the intersections between the intrapsychic and the social, as well as between the personal and the political. Two related lines of theory, that of intersectionality (derived primarily from feminist theory) and of psychoanalytic theory, are proposed and juxtaposed as a productive way of thinking about instances in which the interface between gender and culture presents particular kinds of problems in the consulting room for both clients and therapists. The necessity for a particular kind of critical self, group and cultural awareness is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Prescriptive beliefs pertaining to justice delineate the fair outcomes that an individual should receive. In contrast, descriptive beliefs pertaining to justice reflect expectations regarding the outcomes an individual actually will receive. This study examines the cultural determinants of prescriptive and descriptive beliefs pertaining to justice. It was assumed that prescriptive beliefs pertaining to justice are based on internalized cultural values, whereas descriptive beliefs pertaining to justice are more likely to reflect the recent conditions that actually characterize an individual''s cultural environment. On this basis, it was predicted that (a) prescriptive and descriptive beliefs would possess both a generally perceived (or commonly shared) component and a culture-specific component, and (b) culture would impact prescriptive and descriptive beliefs differently. A cross-cultural comparison of justice beliefs among US, South African, and Chinese participants confirmed these predictions. Cautionary notes and implications are also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]