This synthesis of 30 qualitative studies examined young people's views on pornography related to their sexual health. Synthesis revealed pornography use is considered normal by young people, reinforced by its usefulness as a tool for pleasure, information, and instruction in the absence of sufficient sexuality education. However, youth can become…

Background: While there is now considerable evidence in support of a relationship between executive function (EF) and academic success, these findings almost uniformly derive from Western and high-income countries. Yet, recent findings from low- to -middle-income countries have suggested that patterns of EF and academic skills differ in these…

Using Critical Realism, this article looks at articles from selected South African newspapers which reported on the #FeesMustFall protests. The study established that, arising from the protests, was a culture characteried by tensions and distrust amongst stakeholders such as students, university management and the government. This, the article…

Background: Many adolescents in South Africa are exposed to multiple types of violence, socio-economic disadvantage, and low-quality education: all risk factors for educational outcomes including school delay (grade enrolment below that which is age-appropriate). Supportive teacher-student relationships are known to be associated with improved…

Violence occurring in South African schools takes various forms and is a concern for all stakeholders. All forms of violence have negative effects, i.e. physical and psychological, educational damage and societal breakdown. The overall aim of the study reported on here was to explore the nature, causes and consequences of school violence, and then…

In this article, we draw on data from focus group discussions to examine the ways in which some young boys in a South African township primary school construct and negotiate hegemonic masculinity through bullying, and other forms of violence, within the school. Deviating from the simplistic victim-bully binary, we draw from critical masculinity…

On 20 September 2019 in Cape Town, as part of the global protests on inaction on climate change, the African Climate Alliance submitted a memorandum of demands to South African government representatives, one of which was 'the creation of a mandatory climate-education curriculum for South Africa'. This raises the question of how this imperative…

Child maltreatment and exposure to violence are pervasive in South African townships. Coupled with economic hardships, many youth turn to drugs and crime, and eventually come in contact with the juvenile justice system. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how one young man perceives aspects of his life prior to,…

Studies about workplace bullying recognise that teaching is becoming a high-risk profession. Despite the global concern about teacher-targeted bullying by learners, a dearth of studies remain regarding the bullying of teachers. This study aims at contributing towards the limited corpus of knowledge on the preponderance of the phenomenon within the…

Community health workers have been shown to be an effective way to improve health outcomes in under-resourced contexts like South Africa. Community health workers can support health and well-being through supporting mother-infant bonding, which is associated with a wide range of benefits. The bond between mother and infant is critical for infants'…

Angifi Dladla's poetry and teaching doctrines are considered tools for consciousness raising, healing and popular education for decoloniality. Through "ku femba", an age-old practice that serves as a channel to cast away evil spells in a society bedevilled by violence, Dladla displays the relationship between man, ancestors and the…

The segregation enforced during apartheid has not only ensured widely disparate South African university landscapes, but also framed constructions of activism in historical discourses of racial disenfranchisement and marginalisation. As a result, activism is implicitly and explicitly associated with disadvantaged universities; with black students;…

South African schools are tasked with providing sexuality education through the Life Orientation curriculum as a means of challenging continued high rates of HIV, unwanted pregnancy and gender-based violence. While in theory schools are well positioned to provide appropriate knowledge for reproductive health and navigating sexual challenges within…

This article reports on a qualitative study that explored bullying in the learner toilets of a township secondary school in South Africa and the reasons for its persistence in this particular school. The exploratory study used focus group discussions to collect data to address the research question. Newman's 'defensible space' framework, which…

The need to transform higher education in South Africa is indisputable. This article explores how the recent #mustfall protests, as an Event, could inform transformation. An Event follows three phases: reframing (shattering the frame through which we understand reality), the fall (the loss of a primordial unity which is a retroactive illusion) and…