Jace Pillay

Accounting for Lack of Interracial Mixing Amongst South African University Students

The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 1 068 black African and 1 521 white students. Their agreement or disagreement with eight reasons for avoidance of contact was analysed and found to vary as a function of race. The relationship of their responses to levels of prejudice and amount of interracial contact was examined.

Experiences of learners from child-headed households in a vulnerable school that makes a difference: Lessons for school psychologists

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of vulnerable learners from child-headed households through an ecological systems model that includes their homes, community, and school. Special emphasis was given to the role of school psychologists as change agents within the context of schools. This qualitative study included a sample of 98 5th to 7th grade learners in a vulnerable school. Data were collected through individual interviews, focus groups, and a questionnaire with incomplete sentences. The findings provide a vivid description of their living conditions, changing roles, community fears, and school experiences which inevitably affect their psychological well-being and propagate the need for effective school psychological services. Against all odds, the vulnerable school in this study reflects how it can make a positive difference in the lives of the learners simply through the display of love, attention, and care. Based on the findings several lessons, transcending national boundaries, are presented for school psychologists to be successful in assisting learners from child-headed households in vulnerable schools.

The educational challenges facing early adolescents who head families in rural Limpopo Province

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the educational challenges of rural early adolescents who head families as a result of their parents being migrant workers. A qualitative research design was used with a sample of early adolescents and their teachers from four schools in the Limpopo Province. Data was collected through individual and focus group interviews with learners and teachers, life histories, observations and field notes. The findings indicate that early adolescents encounter various educational challenges, such as poor academic achievement, negative attitudes of teachers, a lack of school necessities, poor school discipline and an increased rate of school dropouts due to pregnancy, life on the streets and job absorption. However, on a positive note, resilience of many of the adolescents to succeed in obtaining an education despite their educational challenges was observed. This posed a challenge to Eriksons theory of psychosocial development during the period of adolescence. O...

Advancement of children’s rights in Africa: A social justice framework for school psychologists

The United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights and the subsequent African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child together with the Bill of Children’s Rights and numerous other policies and regulations in many African countries have set the precedent for children’s rights to be respected and implemented across the African Continent. However, little is known about the actual advancement of children’s rights within Sub-Saharan Africa; hence, the purpose of this study was to explore the advancement of children’s rights within an African context. This qualitative study included a sample of eight respected leaders on different aspects of children’s rights, including academics; policy analysts; directors of children’s centres; legal experts; and members of national, regional, and international committees on children’s rights issues. Data were collected through individual interviews, a questionnaire and the analysis of instruments on children’s rights. The findings indicate there have been considerable improvements in terms of the development of policies and instruments concerning children’s rights. However, challenges around implementation were vividly conspicuous. It is argued here that school psychologists should adopt a social justice framework embedded within a rights based approach to promote children’s rights within the African context.

Challenges Educational Psychologists Face Working with Vulnerable Children

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s second fastest growing region after Asia with a GDP of 5.8% for 2012. However, it is still the world’s poorest region and it has the largest proportion of vulnerable children in the world (Sewpaul & Matthias, 2013).

Learners with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties' experiences of reintegration into mainstream education

Behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD) are a significant impediment to effective teaching and learning in England and Wales. Initiatives such as in-school Learning Support Units (LSUs) and off-site Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) aim to address BESD through short-term individualised learning programmes, followed by mandatory reintegration into mainstream education. This reintegration often fails due to post-reintegration regression contributed to poor-to-fit behaviour. The aim of the study was to analyse and describe the reintegration experiences of learners with BESD, followed by a resilience-based reintegration programme to aid policy makers and practitioners with the reintegration into mainstream education of learners with BESD. A qualitative research approach with a generic phenomenological enquiry within an interpretivist-constructivist paradigm was followed. A total of 13 learners with BESD from the London Borough of Waltham Forest and between the ages of 11 to 14 participated through completion of sentences and a life essay. Of the learner participants, four were invited to participate in unstructured interviews, alongside professionals with an interest in the reintegration of learners. Parents of the participants were asked to complete qualitative questionnaires and teachers were asked to respond to questions via email. In all, three main themes were identified: promotive and risk emotional experiences, promotive and risk relationship experiences and promotive and risk experiences based on the reintegration processes. The findings support guidelines for developing resilience-based reintegration programmes that include developing emotional competence, developing promotive relationships and implementing promotive reintegration practices.

Resilience against all odds: A positive psychology perspective of adolescent-headed families

Abstract As a result of the AIDS pandemic, adolescent-headed families are becoming a common trend in South Africa. However, little is known about the experiences of the adolescent, especially within the school context. Hence the purpose of this article was to explore the experiences of adolescents within the school context. During our initial review of literature we became very disillusioned by the findings of previous studies that portrayed an extremely bleak picture of the experiences of such adolescents. We decided to focus on adolescents from adolescent-headed homes that were displaying resilience in their academic and personal lives despite the odds. Resilience theory and positive psychology assisted us in exploring this topic. Data were collected through individual and focus group interviews with learners and educators. The findings identify specific aspects that are essential to creating resilience to such an extent that they could be positive despite their life situations. We focus on those aspects to assist those adolescents that are indeed not coping.

(Re-)positioning educational psychology in high-risk school communities

This article asks questions about the discourse in community psychology, specifically as it manifests in educational psychology research, in South Africa. With the articles in this special issue of Education as Change in mind, we examine the role of the ecology metaphor in this field and trace aspects of its articulation in a section of literature. We argue for a shared discursive practice of community psychology in a school context, with a language of description for the field that steers clear of cliches and rhetoric, and that uses the ecology metaphor aptly. We further make a case for educational psychologists – especially those working in the national and provincial departments of education – to be trained to do some of the large-scale preventative and interventionist research work. While endorsing what James Kelly refers to as the ‘constraints of pathology discourse’, we argue for a frame of reference that realistically elicits the strengths of a community and the agency of its members. We conclude b...

Violent schools in violent Gauteng: Where the right to learn has to be defended

The object of the inquiry that is captured in this article was the safety of pupils in schools and the increasing number of incidents of school-based violence. We argue that children and youths in schools need assistance to defend their right to learn, and that it can be forthcoming from school communities themselves in a bottom-up manner, because it does not appear to come from the authorities. Incidents of theft, vandalism, burglary, fighting, abuse, rape and even murder, are reported on school grounds. We investigated the spate of school-based violence in 34 schools in Gauteng Province. We collected data from these schools via questionnaires, and individual- and focus-group interviews. The findings show an increased prevalence of school violence, as well as its manifestation in an increasing variety of forms. We conclude that successfully combating school-based violence will depend on a multi-level systems approach that is endorsed by and embedded within school communities.

Perceived parental involvement and well-being among Ethiopian adolescents

This study examined the relationship between perceived parent academic socialisation of their children and the children’s well-being in four domains: depression, self-esteem, school adjustment, and substance use. The participants consisted of 809 Ethiopian high school students, mostly male (52.9%) (mean age = 16.8 years; SD = 1.58 years). Data were collected using self-report measures of perceived parental involvement in education support, depression, self-esteem, school adjustment, and substance use. Multiple regression analyses were used to predict aspects of child well-being from parent child academic socialisation. Generally, results showed that increased level of parental academic socialisation predicted lower depression symptoms, school adjustment problems, substance use, and also increased self-esteem among adolescents.