Student accounts of space and safety at a South African university: implications for social identities and diversity

Shefer, Tamara; Strebel, Anna; Ngabaza, Sisa; Clowes, Lindsay

doi:10.1177/0081246317701887

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Female students in SA and those with atypical sexual orientations and disabilities might be at increased risk of CMDs for a number of reasons, including the possibility that: (1) they are disproportionately exposed to risk factors, such as interpersonal violence, sexual assault and trauma; (2) they face a higher number of social stressors and less social support than their heterosexual male able-bodied peers; and (3) they continue to be marginalised and experience themselves as being at the lower end of social hierarchies. While SA universities have become more inclusive and diverse since the advent of democracy, these institutions are still experienced by some students and faculty as maintaining gender norms which constrain women [79], and perpetuate historical inequalities on the basis of ancestry, class, disability status, and gender [70, 80, 81]. Although SA has a remarkably liberal constitution which protects the rights of women and LGBTQ individuals, there is still evidence of conservative gender roles and high levels of homophobia and homophobic violence in post-apartheid society [82, 83], and on local university campuses [81, 84].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year university students in post-apartheid South Africa: implications for a public mental health approach to student wellness

et al. 2019

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Background: There is growing awareness of the need for effective prevention, early detection, and novel treatment approaches for common mental disorders (CMDs) among university students. Reliable epidemiological data on prevalence and correlates are the cornerstones of planning and implementing effective health services and adopting a public health approach to student wellness. Yet, there is a comparative lack of sound psychiatric epidemiological studies on CMDs among university students in low-and middle-income countries, like South Africa (SA). It is also unclear if historically marginalised groups of students are at increased risk for mental health problems in post-apartheid SA. The objective of the study was to investigate the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of lifetime and 12-month CMDs among university students in SA, with a particular focus on vulnerability among students in historically excluded and marginalised segments of the population. Methods: Data were collected via self-report measures in an online survey of first-year students registered at two large universities (n = 1402). CMDs were assessed with previously-validated screening scales. Data were weighted and analysed using multivariate statistical methods. Results: A total of 38.5% of respondents reported at least one lifetime CMD, the most common being major depressive disorder (24.7%). Twelve-month prevalence of any CMD was 31.5%, with generalised anxiety disorder being the most common (20.8%). The median age of onset for any disorder was 15 years. The median proportional annual persistence of any disorder was 80.0%. Female students, students who reported an atypical sexual orientation, and students with disabilities were at significantly higher risk of any lifetime or 12-month disorder. Female gender, atypical sexual orientation, and disability were associated with elevated risk of internalising disorders, whereas male gender, identifying as White, and reporting an atypical sexual orientation were associated with elevated risk of externalising disorders. Older age, atypical sexual orientation, and disability were associated with elevated risk of bipolar spectrum disorder.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year university students in post-apartheid South Africa: implications for a public mental health approach to student wellness

et al. 2019

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“…Much of their work, and that of others researching in this area in South Africa, also draws from and collaborates with that of Zembylas and others (for example : Zembylas, et al, 2014;Zembylas, 2015). The very active 'University of the Western Cape group' comprising Bozalek and a number of others such as Shefer, Carolissen, Clowes, and Ngabaza (for example: Leibowitz, et al, 2010;Shefer, et al, 2018) We are thus not without a range of powerful theoretical lenses that will allow us to better understand the processes of student success and failure, but as Niven (2012) andothers have shown (for example, Moyo, 2018;Hlengwa, et al, 2018), this scholarship of teaching and learning has failed to achieve much traction within the university itself.…”

Section: The Need For Strong Theorymentioning

confidence: 92%

The obstinate notion that higher education is a meritocracy

Sobuwa

McKenna

2019

CriSTaL

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Student success is an enormous concern in light of the high drop-out rates in South African universities. There is a wealth of local and international research which provides complex explanations for these statistics, but the common-sense understanding is that those students who have the right attributes and who work hard will do well. While the notion of higher education as a meritocracy is pervasive, it is invalid given the effects of numerous other mechanisms at play in the students' educational experiences. This article draws from the literature to discuss the problems of the meritocratic explanation in how it fails to sufficiently account for the centrality of agency and the ways in which this intersects with societal structures. We argue that more useful understandings of student success and failure require social theory that acknowledges the complexities underpinning student success or failure.

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“…The students are mentored through these components of research, given detailed feedback on each of these assignments as well as multiple opportunities to rewrite their work with the overall aim of producing a final research report that is examinable. A key aim of the module is to mentor undergraduate students into inhabiting scholarly identities with a longer term aim of working with students to publish out of this research (see, e.g., Clowes, Shefer and Ngabaza 2017;Ngabaza, Bojarczuk, Masuku and Roelfse 2015;Shefer, Strebel, Ngabaza and Clowes 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Because They Are Me”: Dress and the Making of Gender

Shefer

Ratele

Clowes

2017

South African Review of Sociology

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Young people in contemporary South Africa inhabit a multiplicity of diverse, often contradictory, economic and socio-cultural contexts. These contexts offer a range of possibilities and opportunities for the affirmation of certain identities and positionalities alongside the disavowal of others. Dress-clothes, accessories and body styling-is one of the key components through which, within specific social conditions, people perform these identities. In making statements about themselves in terms of these multiple and intersecting group (or social) historical identities, the meanings soaked into people's dress simultaneously speak to the present and their aspirations for the future. This article reports on a study that explored how a group of third year students at a South African university use dress to negotiate the multiple and intersecting identities available to them in a context characterised by neoliberal democracy and market ideologies that continue to be mediated by the racialised legacies of apartheid. The study employed a qualitative feminist discourse analysis to consider 53 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted by third year students with other students on campus as part of an ongoing project exploring gender productions and performance. The discussion focuses on student understandings of ways in which contemporary clothes and dress signal gender. The research suggests that while there are moments in which clothes are acknowledged as expressions that can reinforce or challenge inequalities structured around gender, participants are also strongly invested in neoliberal consumerist understandings of clothes as accessories to an individualised self in ways that reinforce neoliberal market ideologies and reinstate hegemonic performances of gender.

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Student accounts of space and safety at a South African university: implications for social identities and diversity

Abstract: Shefer, T. et al. (2018). Student accounts of space and safety at a South African university: implication for social identities and diversity. South African Journal of Psychology, 41 (1)

Cited by 21 publications

References 24 publications

Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year university students in post-apartheid South Africa: implications for a public mental health approach to student wellness

Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year university students in post-apartheid South Africa: implications for a public mental health approach to student wellness

The obstinate notion that higher education is a meritocracy

“Because They Are Me”: Dress and the Making of Gender

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