School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) is a major obstacle to universal schooling and the right to education for girls. Inequitable gender norms and stereotypes, based on hierarchies and forms of subordination, amplify and contribute to the SRGBV. Extensive literature on gender-based violence in South African schools exists, and much of it…

School violence has been on the increase over the past few years, despite several interventions put in place by school management, the Department of Education and parents. Nonetheless, school violence remains a debilitating factor to safe and secure schools. It is within this context that this paper examines the participation of Representative…

Drawing upon a post-structural ethnography of boys' constructions of gendered and sexual identities in one South African high school, this paper empirically seeks to theorise how 20 Grade 8 boys, identified as The Jokers, The Achievers, The Outcasts and The Average Ou's, simultaneously seek out spaces in male peer culture to cultivate, police and…

Purpose: In this study, we explore students' views and experiences in relation to education about, through, and for human rights, peace, and sustainability in the global north and south. We investigate what students after nine years of schooling see as central issues and productive actions linked to key elements of global citizenship education…

School-based violence is serious, and on the rise in South African schools. The violence affects learners, teachers, communities and the management of schools. Towards finding possible ways to manage school violence, this article presents social networking as a strategic tool in the management of school-based violence in high schools, based on the…

The continued use of corporal punishment in some South African schools and the reasons advanced for it make this subject topical even now, twenty years after the abolition of this practice. Corporal punishment is a worrying issue among human rights activists and scholars. This paper reports on contestations and paradoxes regarding the use of…

Young women's sexuality is a contested terrain in multiple ways in contemporary South Africa. A growing body of work in the context of HIV and gender-based violence illustrates how young women find it challenging to negotiate safe and equitable sexual relationships with men, and are often the victims of coercive sex, unwanted early pregnancies and…

Boys are commonly associated with disruptive behaviour and physical fighting at school. Explanations for this behaviour range from naturalistic "boys will be boys" approaches to analyses which focus on the social construction of masculinity and emphasise the gendered nature of boys' behaviour. Whichever view holds sway, it is often…

Background: This study investigated the relationship between school connectedness and health risk behaviors, specifically, substance abuse, violence-related behaviors, sexual risk behaviors, and suicidal ideation among school-going adolescents. School connectedness was understood to encompass a range of aspects pertaining to a learner's sense of…

Objective: Identifying the comparative contributions of different forms of violence exposure to trauma sequelae can help to prioritize interventions for polyvictimized youth living in contexts of limited mental health resources. This study aimed to establish gender patterns in the independent and comparative contributions of five types of violence…

This paper explores how sexually marginalised black high-school students from conservative schooling contexts in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, experience schooling. It draws on queer theories through life narratives in presenting findings from a small-scale interventionist project designed by the author. The project involved 14 participants…

Background: Little is known about the prevalence of partner violence among adolescents, nor of the factors with which it is associated. The objectives of this study were to document prevalence rates for partner violence among high school students in Cape Town, and to explore factors that are associated with such violence. Method: The sample…

Three cohorts of South African high school students in the black township of Alexandra completed questionnaires on township life in 1987, 1989, and 1992, respectively. In all three contexts youth reported a high exposure to violence. When the violence occurred in the context of intracommunity conflict (in 1992) it was construed to be the most…