Eli phepha lithiywe “Ukuzotywa kwabalinganiswa ababhinqileyo, abazintloko kwidrama zolwimi lwesiXhosa, bezotywa ngababhali besini sobuduna nesini sobukhomokazi liza kube lijongene nendlela apho ababhali abasini esohlukileyo, abathi babazobe ngayo abalinganiswa abayintloko, abangamabhinqa kwizibhalo zabo zedrama zelwimi lwesiXhosa. Apha kuzobe kujongwe ingakumbi ababhali abasini sobuduna, ngenjongo yokuveza umba wokuba ababhali besini sobukhomokazi babazoba abalinganiswa ababhinqileyo nje ngabantu abangenamiqolo okuzimela ngaphandle kokuba kubekho indoda obomini babo. Aba babhali babazoba abalinganiswa ababhiqileyo phansti kwala ngcamango yokuba, apho umntu obhinqileyo ekumela afumaneke khona kusezimbizeni apho baphekela usapho lwabo rhoqo, ekucoceni umzi nasekukhuliseni abantwana, hayi enye into engaphaya koko. Ngoko ke eli phepha libhalwe ngenjongo yokuphelisa oku dodobalisa loo ngcamango. Baninzi kea bantu abaphikisana nale ndlela yaphotho lwamabhinqa ngamadoda abo, nangamanye amadoda nje jikilele, eli phepha lizobe lingqinelana nolo ninzi lwabantu abathi loo mpatho mbi yamabhinqa mayiphele, kuvezwe imeko yokuba kukho ulingano phakathi kwamabhinqa kunye nababt abasini sobukhomakazi. Int ethetha ukuba eli phepha lizakuti ligqithele lijonge kwaye liveze indlela apho kungati kuekho ulingwano phathi kwezini zimbini, nendlela apho uwonke wonke angakwazi ukuphila ngentlonipho omnye komnye kungekho zimpatho mbi, okanye sini sinesikhundla esiphakamileyo kunesinye.

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The research was submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johanneburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Drama Arts / This research explores the tension between women’s personal wellbeing, expectations and desires and the expectations imposed by cultural practices, customs, beliefs and norms. We know that there are harmful traditional cultural practices which violate the rights of women and that policies and legislative instruments have been put in place to outlaw these practices. Examples of such practices in South Africa include marriage by abduction, child marriages and virginity testing (Wadesango, et al., 2009). So far, the nature of interventions that deal with women’s rights in rural South African communities tends to focus on advocacy and education, but fail to recognize the existence of intergenerational conflict among women. This conflict compromises the ability for interventions focusing on women’s rights to have sustainable impact on the community and gives opportunity for further violation of women’s rights through harmful traditional cultural practices. This study demonstrates and offers the use of Story, in Applied Theatre and Drama (Chinyowa, (2001), Fox (2006), Mutwa, (1965), as a tool to engage women on traditional cultural practices which violate their rights. It takes a Generational Approach (Howe and Strauss, 2007) to understanding the underlying causes of the continuation of such practices by engaging with the personal narratives of an intergenerational group of women from Ntoane Village, Limpopo, South Africa. Using Narrative Inquiry (Hinchman & Hinchman, 1997), Reflective Practice (Schon, 1987) and Narrative Practice (Gubrium and Holstein1998) in partnership with Story, women from Generation X and Y cohorts embarked on a four-day process which revealed how the characteristics and behavioural patterns of each generation impact and determine the positioning of women in the community and ultimately women’s experiences of traditional cultural practices. The research findings suggest that applying a Generational Approach to social development processes in rural South African communities, as it proves in this research, may contribute to the sustainability of sociological interventions in such environments. / NG (2020)

Educators and school staff often overlook students with intellectual disabilities and students who are LGBTQ+ within public schools. They recognize even less students who identify in both these areas. The purpose of this study is to add to a small pool of research about how to best support students with intellectual disabilities who are gender nonconforming. A review of literature found a gap in understanding the experiences of students with intellectual disabilities who are gender nonconforming. This study uses a qualitative research design and intersectionality as a theoretical framework. The researcher completed interview with four special education staff using open-ended questions to learn how they have observed ways schools have supported students with intellectual disabilities who are gender nonconforming. The researcher categorized responses into the following themes: gender expression, relationships, acceptance and representation, resources for students, training for educators, and policy. The researcher found through the experience, knowledge, and perspectives of these four special education staff that students can freely express their gender identity in school and have mostly positive relationships with their peers and school staff. Special education and school staff generally accept students with these dual identifiers in schools, but rarely represent them in curriculum. Schools support students through wellness centers and positive language. Educators are in need of training on existing policy and procedure and ways to better include and represent students with intellectual disabilities who are gender nonconforming in their classrooms.

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Patriarchy and Bullying: A Cross-National Analysis of 23 Education Systems Adolescent bullying is increasingly understood as behaviors that reflect and reinforce prevailing norms, cultures, and power structures within broader social contexts, yet the role of patriarchy in shaping bullying dynamics remains underexplored. Drawing on data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (N=89,345 adolescents, across 23 education systems), I examine how the frequency and targets of peer victimization are structured by group adherence to patriarchy at multiple levels. I specifically consider two manifestations of patriarchy: societal-level gender inequality and classroom-aggregated patriarchal beliefs. Results show that adolescents in societies with higher levels of gender inequality experience increased rates of bullying, and bullying is more prevalent in classrooms where students collectively hold stronger patriarchal beliefs. Adherence to patriarchy is especially salient in predicting the frequency of bullying against girls and overt forms of bullying like physical violence. Despite being structurally favored in patriarchy, the victimization risk of boys is also elevated in more patriarchal peer groups, in line with theories that enforcement of hegemonic masculinity provokes aggression and often involves attacking femininity in boys. Taken together, these findings suggest that gender inequality and patriarchal beliefs effectively explain variation in bullying victimization rates across contexts. Challenging unequal gender power relations and norms at both the societal and peer group level can have significant benefits in reducing adolescent bullying. Vulnerability or Agency? The Link Between Gender Nonconformity and Self-Efficacy Do adolescents who deviate from traditional gender roles exhibit higher or lower self-efficacy—the confidence in one’s ability to achieve personal goals? Existing studies suggest that gender nonconformity often elicits peer denigration, which may undermine one’s self-efficacy. However, it may also signify high self-efficacy as it reflects the agency to assert one’s identity despite societal pressures. Drawing on survey data collected from an inland province of China (N = 2,008), this study finds that gender nonconformity is associated with lower self-efficacy overall; yet, the effect size is weak, and the relationship exhibits strong non-linearity. Adolescents identifying as “equally feminine and masculine” report notably high self-efficacy. Exploratory analyses reveal two key mechanisms that might link gender nonconformity to self-efficacy. First, gender nonconforming students experience increased covert bullying and reduced peer validation, which significantly predict lower self-efficacy. Second, these students often reject traditional gender role beliefs and feel less pressure to conform—reflecting agency rooted in personal conviction and self-acceptance, though not directly tied to higher self-efficacy. Educators and policymakers should develop interventions to address covert bullying and strengthen social support for gender nonconforming students. At the same time, it is crucial to move beyond viewing gender nonconformity solely as a source of vulnerability and recognize that adolescents may actively engage in nonconformity as an expression of agency and resistance to social gender expectations. Explaining Gender Policing among Adolescents: The Role of Peers, Teachers, and Personal Gender Role Beliefs The enforcement of gender norms among adolescents, or gender policing, frequently involves aggression and denigration toward norm violators. Despite decades of research documenting how adolescents experience social sanctions for being gender nonconforming, why certain individuals are more inclined to police gender norms against their peers remains unclear. Do people police gender norms because they believe their teachers or peers endorse the norms? Or do they act based on internalized beliefs that view gender conformity as a moral imperative? Drawing on survey data from 2,008 students in China, this study shows that personal gender role beliefs are the strongest predictor of adolescent engagement in gender policing, while perceived teacher gender expectations have minimal influence. Critically, regardless of their own gender role beliefs, adolescents are more likely to police gender norms when they perceive their peers to hold rigid gender role expectations. Additionally, this study reveals that boys engage more intensely in gender policing than girls, particularly against gender nonconforming boys, suggesting that the enforcement of gender norms is more rigid among adolescent boys. Efforts to reduce gender policing must address both individual-level gender role beliefs and collective normative expectations, while recognizing the different ways boys and girls experience and enforce gender norms.

The main body of the thesis deals with selected factors underlying the considerable variability in human olfactory abilities and some odour awareness-related measures, addressed in samples ranging in age from middle childhood to young adulthood. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part (Chapter 1), first presents the major advances and developments that brought about something of a renaissance of scientific interest in the human sense of smell, including the recent proliferation of psychophysical studies, both basic research and clinical. Next, an outline of olfactory psychophysical measures and related olfactory abilities that are of relevance to the studies presented in this thesis is provided. Subsequently, the selected factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities, that have been addressed by this thesis, are reviewed, namely the effect of sex (or gender), which is approached from a developmental perspective, childhood gender nonconformity, and personality. Finally, intraindividual fluctuations in olfactory performance are also mentioned in brief. Next, the focus shifts to odour awareness by first introducing the various approaches that can be adopted to get closer to the real-life context as opposed to laboratory setting (where most olfactory studies continue to be...

The main body of the thesis deals with selected factors underlying the considerable variability in human olfactory abilities and some odour awareness-related measures, addressed in samples ranging in age from middle childhood to young adulthood. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part (Chapter 1), first presents the major advances and developments that brought about something of a renaissance of scientific interest in the human sense of smell, including the recent proliferation of psychophysical studies, both basic research and clinical. Next, an outline of olfactory psychophysical measures and related olfactory abilities that are of relevance to the studies presented in this thesis is provided. Subsequently, the selected factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities, that have been addressed by this thesis, are reviewed, namely the effect of sex (or gender), which is approached from a developmental perspective, childhood gender nonconformity, and personality. Finally, intraindividual fluctuations in olfactory performance are also mentioned in brief. Next, the focus shifts to odour awareness by first introducing the various approaches that can be adopted to get closer to the real-life context as opposed to laboratory setting (where most olfactory studies continue to be...

Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in 1868 and the novel has been loved and praised ever since. Throughout the years, Jo March is the character that has been viewed as the heart of the novel, celebrated both as a tomboy and a feminist icon. In the novel, she is initially portrayed with gender-nonconforming traits, with strong ambitions of becoming a writer, and she longs for independence rather than to conform to the norms of femininity prevalent in the 19th century. However, Jo’s character arc takes a surprising turn when she marries Mr. Bhaer in the end, leaving her extensive declarations of independence behind. This essay argues that there is a question of literary ambiguity in the breakdown of Jo’s character arc, questioning the authenticity in her declared happiness at the end. It furthermore offers a psychological analysis of Jo March’s character arc by using Sigmund Freud’s concept of sublimation to examine Jo’s struggle with anger and internal conflicts, revealing that she redirects her excessive emotions into creative processes of writing and ultimately into marriage. The analysis further examines the discrepancy in the portrayal of Jo at the beginning of the novel and at the end, arguing for the “happy” ending as unconvincing and unresolved. Through close readings of the novel with support from Freud’s concept of sublimation, the essay reveals unresolved tensions withing her character that questions the conventional interpretation of Jo’s journey from tomboy to traditional woman. Never before has the character Jo March been analyzed through a psychoanalytic perspective, making this essay contributing to a more extensive dialogue on the unresolved nature of her story.