Sharlene Swartz

‘Going deep’ and ‘giving back’: strategies for exceeding ethical expectations when researching amongst vulnerable youth

This article interrogates how research amongst vulnerable populations, especially youth, may be designed and implemented to exceed the usual standards of research ethics. It describes the dual aims of ethical research within an emancipatory framework as ‘going deep’ through utilizing ‘an ethics of parallax perspectives’; and ‘giving back’ by employing an ‘intentional ethics of reciprocation’. It offers a package of six additional ethical strategies, which may be combined in various permutations in order to achieve these ends. These strategies include choosing appropriate research activities; deliberately building relationships with research participants; conveying researcher subjectivity; developing mutuality and flattening the power gradient; considering how language is used and representations are made; and planning ‘research-as-intervention’. Drawing on a multi-layered ethnographic study of the moral understandings of a group of impoverished South African township youth, the article offers insight into how these ethical strategies address vulnerability and emancipation in practice, including the multiple ethical dilemmas they raise.

Bereavement, silence and culture within a peer-led HIV/AIDS-prevention strategy for vulnerable children in South Africa

In addressing the psychosocial effects of the HIV and AIDS pandemic among vulnerable children, the issue of bereavement appears inadequately addressed. Amid the global discourse on children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS, this paper explores how cultural contexts and social environments in South Africa shape childrens experience of grief. The argument draws on a number of qualitative studies and uses empirical evidence from an evaluation of a peer-led HIV/AIDS-prevention strategy aimed at providing psychosocial support for 10- to 13-year-old South African children living in resource-poor communities. The paper reveals a central paradox regarding how the interventions objective of talking about death and eliciting memories of deceased loved ones with young children is confounded by cultural practices located in notions of silence and the need to protect children. The paper acknowledges the ‘culture of silence’ surrounding death in some African contexts, but concludes that peer-led strategies have the potential to naturally circumvent these cultural taboos, simultaneously creating a much-needed space for young children to cry and talk among themselves, even if remaining silent at home in the presence of adults.

Measuring change in vulnerable adolescents: Findings from a peer education evaluation in South Africa

Introduction: In the context of poverty and HIV and AIDS, peer education is thought to be capable of providing vulnerable youth with psychosocial support as well as information and decision-making skills otherwise limited by scarce social and material resources. As a preventative education intervention method, peer education is a strategy aimed at norms and peer group influences that affect health behaviours and attitudes. However, too few evaluations of peer-led programmes are available, and they frequently fail to reflect real differences between those who have been recipients of peer education and those who have not. This article reports on an evaluation of a pilot peer-led intervention, entitled Vhutshilo, implemented on principles agreed upon through a collaborative effort in South Africa by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centre for the Support of Peer Education (the Rutanang collaboration). Vhutshilo targeted vulnerable adolescents aged 14–16 years living in some of South Africas under-resourced communities. Methodology: The research design was a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative), longitudinal, quasi-experimental evaluation. Tools used included a quantitative survey questionnaire (n = 183) and semi-structured interviews (n = 32) with beneficiaries of peer education. Surveys were administered twice for beneficiaries of peer education (n = 73), immediately after completion of the programme (post-test) and 4 months later (delayed post-test), and once for control group members (n = 110). The three main methodological limitations in this study were the use of a once-off control group assessment as the baseline for comparison, without a pre-test, due to timing and resource constraints; a small sample size (n = 183), which reduced the statistical power of the evaluation; and the unavailability of existing tested survey questions to measure the impact of peer education and its role in behaviour change. Findings: This article reports on the difficulties of designing a comprehensive evaluation within time and financial constraints, critically evaluates survey design with multi-item indicators, and discusses six statistically significant changes observed in Vhutshilo participants out of a 92-point survey. Youth struggling with poor quality education and living in economically fraught contexts with little social support, nonetheless, showed evidence of having greater knowledge of support networks and an expanded emotional repertoire by the end of the Vhutshilo programme, and 4 months later. At both individual and group level, many with low socio-economic status showed great improvement with regard to programme indicator scores. Conclusion: For the poorest adolescents, especially those living in the rural parts of South Africa, peer education has the potential to change future orientation, attitudes and knowledge regarding HIV and AIDS, including an intolerance for multiple concurrent partnerships. When well organised and properly supported, peer education programmes (and the Vhutshilo curriculum, in particular) provide vulnerable youth with opportunities to develop psychosocial skills and informational resources that contribute to the changing of norms, attitudes and behaviours. However, the article also flags the need for effective peer education evaluations that take into account limited financial resources and that possess tested indicators of programme effectiveness.

Ikasi style and the quiet violence of dreams: a critique of youth belonging in post-Apartheid South Africa

Drawing on empirical data from two recent research studies in post-Apartheid South Africa, this paper asks what it means to be poor, young and black, and belong in a society that has suffered debilitating and dehumanising racial subjugation, actively excluding people from citizenship, and how poverty serves to perpetuate this exclusion. It examines the notions of citizenship and belonging and asks what are the meanings and markers of both in a country like South Africa. It focuses on alternative modes of belonging adopted by young people – in this case dreaming and adopting what they term ikasi style. The paper then shows how structural and symbolic violence are complicit in silencing the dreams and aspirations of poor youth, before expanding Ramphele and Browns notion of ‘woundedness’ to consider its implications for citizenship and belonging. It concludes with modest recommendations regarding how this state of affairs might be redressed within educational and policy contexts.

Why Young Men in South Africa Plan to Become Teenage Fathers: Implications for the Development of Masculinities within Contexts of Poverty

Drawing on in-depth interviews with young fathers (n=37) aged 14 to 20 in impoverished communities in South Africa, this study focuses on the young men who intentionally planned to have children while still teenagers. It interrogates their reasons for doing so, as well as their responses to their impending fatherhood and reactions after the birth of their child. Reasons such as wish-fulfillment, leaving a legacy, wanting to keep a partner, and wanting to be seen as ‘fashionable’ amongst their peers are discussed. An analysis is provided of the relationship between young fatherhood, poverty and masculinities. Key to the discussion are the interrelated notions of ownership and responsibility, and the ways in which impoverished young men find young fatherhood to be a powerful mediator in contexts where alternative pathways to exhibiting dominant masculinities are scarce.

Gender-based violence: Young women's experiences in the slums and streets of three sub-Saharan African cities

Using a social ecological approach (Bronfenbrenner) to violence and including Hobsbawm’s historical analysis of the collective uses of violence, this article shows how gender-based violence is experienced and used. Drawing on three distinct studies in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, it shows the commonalities and divergence of young people’s experiences of violence. It links the microsystems of school, community, street and family with the larger macrosystems of poverty, government policies, power relations and structural violence. This approach highlights the relationship between the forms of gender-based violence, youth experience, and the marginalized and deprived habitats in which our research was conducted. Violence experienced by young women is shown to be linked to the ways in which young men use violence as vehicles of revenge and retribution, a desire for respect, expression of love of a mother, control over female sexuality and, ultimately, assertion of collective notions of masculinity on the street and in sprawling urban settlements. We conclude by attempting to identify what is needed to challenge the violence inflicted by poverty on young people, especially young women, the denial of their rights, and the violence they inflict on themselves and others.

The pain and the promise of moral education in sub‐Saharan Africa

The term ‘moral’ has had a chequered history in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly due to the legacy of colonialism in Africa and the history of Apartheid oppression in South Africa. When Apartheid’s racist policies were entrenched, through a series of legislative acts beginning in 1948, the Nationalist government notoriously enacted a statute known as The Immorality Act (Republic of South Africa, Parliament, 1950). Sadly, the act had nothing to do with morality as it ought to be understood. It did not deal with kindness, human flourishing or the good life, or with the inhumane ways in which people deal with each other, or with the censure of people who perpetrate violence or perpetuate injustice. Rather this notorious Immorality Act, prohibited sexual intercourse and marriage between people of different ‘races’. It not only served to entrench Apartheid as ‘one of the great evils of the modern era’ (Crais, 2002, p. 4) and ‘a crime against humanity’ (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1999, p. 94), but also forever tainted the term ‘morality’ by loading it with references to miscegenation, white supremacy and social control. Furthermore, the philosophy underpinning African colonisation was largely supported by the view that colonisation was a vehicle towards the ‘civilisation’ of the continent, with ‘civilisation’ being ‘not just a marker of material improvement, but also a normative judgment about the moral progress of society’ (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2006). Moreover ‘colonising’, ‘civilising’, ‘Christianising’ and ‘moralising’ were inextricably linked. In contrast, when renowned author, Antjie Krog (1999) speaks of ‘three centuries of fractured morality’ (p. 68), she is referring to the immoral history of colonisation, slavery, land dispossession, conquest, subjugation and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Morality’ clearly means different things to different people and in Africa it is an especially problematic term, not least when, as is currently the case in Uganda, Malawi and Zimbabwe, sexual orientation is cause for moral censure and legal conviction. Moral education is subsequently tainted by association, especially since it, too, has been used as a vehicle of cultural imperialism, nationalist propaganda and social (and

Social and structural factors associated with vulnerability to HIV infection among young adults in South Africa

There is increasing focus on social and structural factors following the marginal success of individual-level strategies for HIV prevention. While there is evidence of decreased HIV prevalence among young individuals in South Africa, there is still a need to monitor HIV incidence and prevalence in this vulnerable group as well as track and prevent high-risk sexual behavior(s). This study investigated the social and structural factors that shape the context of vulnerability to increased risk of exposure to HIV infection. A mixed-methods approach including qualitative and quantitative design components was employed. Young adults in the age group 18–24 were interviewed from four provinces in South Africa. The qualitative results produced strong support for the effectiveness of loveLife’s HIV prevention programs. The household-based survey results showed that the strongest predictors of self-reported HIV infection (indicating a greater chance of being infected) using adjusted odds ratios (aOR) are: being diagnosed with an STI in a lifetime (aOR 13.68 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [4.61–40.56]; p < .001), inconsistent condom use (aOR 6.27 95% CI [2.08–18.84]; p < .01), and difficulty in accessing condoms (aOR 2.86 95% CI [1.04–7.88]; p < .05). The strongest predictors that indicated a decreased chance of being infected with the HI virus are: talking with partner about condom use in the past 12 months (aOR .08 95% CI [.02–.36]; p < .001) and having a grade 8 (aOR .04 95% CI [.01–.66]; p < .05) and higher educational level (aOR .04 95% CI [.01–.43]). These results show that social and structural factors serve as risk and protective factors for HIV prevention among young people. Intervention programs need to continue to focus on effective communication strategies and healthy relationships. Structural adjustments have to be made to encourage school attendance. Finally, social/health policies and health service delivery have to also be refined so that young people have access to youth friendly health services.

‘Moral ecology’ and ‘moral capital’: tools towards a sociology of moral education from a South African ethnography

Research and pedagogy in the field of morality and moral education has long been dominated by philosophical and psychological disciplines. Although sociological studies and theorising in the field have not been absent, it has been limited and non‐systematic. Drawing on a study that investigated the lived morality of a group of young South Africans growing up in the aftermath of Apartheid and in the townships of Cape Town, this paper surveys the historical contribution made by sociologists to the study of morality and introduces two sociological notions of importance to moral education research and practice: ‘moral ecology’ and ‘moral capital’. Employing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory it describes the moral life as an ecology of interconnecting systems, complex antinomies, diverse codes, multiple positionings, discordant processes and competing influences, over time and on multiple levels. Moral capital, draws on Bourdieu’s work on capitals and is described in two ways. First, as a dialectic, such that young people living in poverty identify how being ‘good’ can be translated into economic capital, which in turn enables them to remain ‘good’. Second, it asks, what are the necessary elements of moral capital that young people need in order to be good and so attain the economic future to which they aspire? The paper concludes by noting how a sociology of moral education contributes to understanding the relationship between poverty and morality, including the social reproduction of morality; and its relevance for moral education research and practice.

Anti-racist moral education: A review of approaches, impact and theoretical underpinnings from 2000 to 2015

Abstract Racism is a moral issue and of concern for moral educators, with recent social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter highlighting how far we are from obliterating racial oppression and the unearned privilege whiteness confers. To contribute to a more formalised approach to anti-racist moral education, this article systematically reviews 15 years of peer-reviewed scholarship concerned with anti-racist education, to establish the definitions and aims of anti-racist education drawn on, the theoretical frameworks underpinning these, the methods used in education efforts, and their intended impact. It also considers the geo-political aspects of knowledge production in the field, such as author country location and implementation context of empirical studies. It concludes with implications for moral education in classroom and community contexts and advocates for anti-racist moral education that comprise three interconnected components—making visible systemic oppression (visibilising), recognising personal complicity in oppression through unearned privilege (recognising) and developing strategies to transform structural inequalities (strategising).