This article focuses on how male and female primary school teachers' account of the suitability of male teachers in early years or Foundation Phase (FP) of schooling. We draw from an in-depth qualitative interview-based study to examine how ideals around hegemonic masculinity have effects for the characterization of FP within traditional feminine…

This paper explores the ways in which young South African school children (aged between seven and eight) in a predominantly white primary school give meanings to HIV/AIDS. Using ethnographic methods and interview data, the analysis of young children's responses shows that their accounts of HIV/AIDS draw from their knowledge of disease more…

In South Africa, the centrality of gender-based violence in the spread of HIV/AIDS has led to many educational efforts to address it. The particular social values that male teachers hold around gender-based violence have been less examined. By focusing on African male teachers' understandings of gender-based violence, this paper highlights the…

This paper focuses on the ways in which a selected group of early childhood teachers in grades one and two, located in a predominantly white middle-class context in Durban, South Africa ascribe meaning to young boys they teach. The study finds that early childhood teachers are bearers of masculinity and incorporate taken-for-granted assumptions of…

This paper explores the salience of sport in the lives of eight-year-old and nine-year-old South African primary school boys. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data, I argue that young boys' developing relationship with sport is inscribed within particular gendered, raced and classed discourses in South Africa. Throughout the paper I show…

Drawing from data collected during interviews with grade 2 teachers who work in a black working-class township school, this paper explores the meanings that teachers attach to HIV and AIDS education. It is argued that the relationship of many teachers to the subject of HIV and AIDS is inscribed within regulatory forces based on the notion of…