The current study aimed to contribute to research in the areas of Sex-Role Identity (SRI) and Work-Family Conflict (WFC), as no research to date has examined how socially desirable and socially undesirable SRI‟s effect this inter-role conflict. The EPAQ-R was used to examine a differentiated model of SRI and Carlson et al.‟s WFC scale measured the bi-directional nature of WFC. This study made use of a cross-sectional, exploratory research design with 268 working mothers participating in this research. Under the COR framework and social constructionist theory, this study demonstrated that sex-role personality traits serve as resources that influence individual experiences of WFC. Results from a series of one and two-way ANOVA‟s indicated that socially desirable SRI‟s were associated with lower WFC than their undesirable counterparts. The results from this study provide support for the differentiated model of SRI. The practical and theoretical implications of this research are presented in this study.

Internationally research on masculinity in schools has become an area of increasing interest. Little such research has been carried out in South Africa. This thesis investigates teachers' perceptions of masculinity in a broad range of schools in KwaZulu-Natal. It was investigated whether perceptions of masculinity might vary by type of school. In addition, within the historical context of schooling in South Africa, it was investigated whether differences in constructs of masculinity across sites might reflect a complex interplay of race, class and gender. A qualitative methodology was adopted for this investigation and semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen teachers at ten different schools. These interviews were auditotaped and transcribed. Analysis of these transcripts revealed that interviewees speak with multiple voices, reflecting conflict and contradiction in their constructs of masculinity. Results do, however, reveal core commonalities in concepts of masculinity across sites as well as a number of important contrasts. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Since 2009 the textbook has emerged as a key educational resource in South African classrooms. This has been a direct response to rapid curriculum change, and real and perceived inadequacies in teacher content and pedagogic knowledge. Of significance though is that there is limited understanding of the nature of content selections that textbook authors invoke and the subtext thereof. The purpose of this study therefore is to understand how gender is represented in Business Studies textbooks available to teachers and pupils in the Further Education and Training (FET) band in South African classrooms. This qualitative study is located in the critical paradigm and engaged the tenets of Critical Discourse Analysis as the key analytical frame. A purposive sample of two contemporary Business Studies textbooks was selected to investigate the phenomenon of gender representation. Findings reveal that stereotypes of women and men are reinforced in the selected textbooks under study. Women were shown more frequently in home settings than were men. Men were shown in a wider variety of occupational roles than women. Textbooks portrayed men in a wide range of highly-paid, high-status occupations such as managing directors, doctors, lawyers etc. In both texts more males have been represented in leadership positions in government, economic and corporate institutions. The textbooks further represented women as being disabled and destitute. Males were portrayed as confident and educated in the usage of technology while women were portrayed as illiterate. Additionally men were portrayed as assertive and forthright business individuals, while women were also portrayed as emotional and as more reliant on, or needing, the advice of men to deal with business-related issues. Finally, the portrayal of firstness presented the male pronoun first in sentences and conversation as opposed to the female pronoun. The findings indicate that representations in the textbooks are gender-biased and gender-insensitive. Of concern is that these representations may be transmitted to school learners. A critical approach to the selection and use of textbooks is thus necessary. Much work needs to be done by key role players in the educational sectors to ensure that gender inclusivity becomes a feature of South African Business Studies textbooks. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This study begins with the assertion that gender-role stereotypes exist in society, and that these influence the way the members of society perceive themselves and others. These stereotypes consist of sex-typed personality traits, attitudes, interests and behaviours, and they vary to a greater or lesser extent according to the culture that they originate in. Just as ordinary members of society are influenced by these stereotypes, so too are researchers, although this is not something that is often readily admitted. A great deal of research has been undertaken on gender-roles in past years, but researchers have tended to re-use existing conceptualisations of gender without examining whether they are in fact salient for the culture or generation under study. This study begins with the premise that (in South Africa as much as anywhere) before truly accurate assessment of the distributions of gender roles in a culture can be initiated, the culturally specific content of its gender-roles must be discovered. This firstly involves the description of the culture's gender-role stereotypes. Such explication would hopefully also help researchers to avoid making biased interpretations as a result of the stereotypes. Secondly, the relationship between stereotypes and self-perceptions must be established to see if scales based on the former are valid for use on the latter. This study's aim was to begin to investigate these two areas in English and Xhosa students. 94 white English speaking, and 48 black Xhosa speaking undergraduate students responded to an open ended, and a Likert-type questionnaire on various traits, attitudes and behaviours, by rating each for the "typical" male and female as well as themselves. Descriptions of stereotypes and self-ratings were obtained from performing within culture t-tests, comparing ratings of typical males and females, and male and female self ratings. Data from the open ended questionnaires was used to fill out these descriptions, which were then compared across sexes and across cultures. Gender stereotyping proved to be salient in both cultures, and gender stereotypes of the two cultures shared some similarities but also had menaingful differences. In both cultures, stereotypes and self-descriptions paralleled one another in some areas, but also differed significantly. It was concluded that the same gender-role scale would not be equally valid for use in the two cuItures, and that scales based on stereotypes would not be altogether valid for assessing self-perceptions. Various issues and implications arising from the results are discussed critically, including the proposal for a redefinition of the terms "stereotype" and "culture" to suit South African society.

M.A. (Psychology ) / The purpose of this study was firstly to develop a measuring scale to determine tension experienced by working mothers who still have pre-school children in nursery schools...

Bibliography: pages 180-207. / Gender studies in various disciplines, particularly anthropology, have shown that the opposition of masculine : feminine is commonly used to structure other cultural contrasts, and that the representation of this opposition in cultural products is in turn implicated in the cultural construction of gender content. This bidirectional problematic, supplementing the more limited critique of gender 'bias' and masculinist models, is the focus of this research into archaeological materials. Rock art is the principal archaeological 'trace' analysed. Because the impetus to gender studies comes principally from the critical standpoint of feminism, analyses of gender and gendering in archaeological materials are evaluated in the context of gender issues in the present day, in terms of archaeological 'reconstructions' as legitimising the existing gender order. Theoretical influences include feminism, hermeneutics, marxism, (post)- structuralism, semiotics, and discourse theory. Aspects of language, and, particularly, the oral narratives of various San groups - the /Xam, G /wi, !Kung, Nharo, and others - are examined in order to establish the way in which masculinity and femininity are/have been conceptualised and differentiated by San peoples. This is followed by an assessment of the manner of and extent to which the masculine: feminine opposition informs narrative content and structure. The analysis of language texts permits an approach to the representation of this opposition in non-language cultural texts (such as visual art, space). Particular constructions of masculinity and femininity, and a number of gendered contrasts (pertaining to form, orientation, time, number, quality) are identified. Gender symbolism is linked to the themes of rain and fertility/ continuity, and analysed in political terms, according to the feminist materialist contention that, in non-class societies, gender opposition is potentially the impetus to social change. Gender(ing) is more fundamental to San cultural texts than has been, recognised, being present in a range of beliefs which are linked by their gender symbolism. I utilise a 'fertility hypothesis', derived from a reading of the ethnographies, in order to explain various elements of Southern African rock art, Well-preserved (thus relatively recent) paintings, principally from sites in the Drakensberg and south-western Cape, were selected. Features interpreted via this hypothesis include: images of humans, the motif of the thin red line fringed with white dots, 'elephants in boxes', therianthropic figures, and 'androgynous' figures, including the eland. The spatial organisation of the art, the significance of non-realistic perspectives, and the problem of the numerical male dominance of the art are also interpreted from this standpoint. The analysis permits critique, of the theorisation of gender and ideology in rock art studies, and of the biophysical determinism implicit in current rock art studies, in which attempts are made to explain many features of the art by reference to trance states, altered consciousness and neurophysiological constitution. Rain, rather than trance, is proposed as the central element of San ritual/religious practices. Finally, the treatment of (or failure to consider) gender(ing) in the archaeological record is situated in relatio.n to contemporary gender ideologies, in the contexts of archaeological theory and practice.

African pensioner grandmothers and their teenage granddaughters constitute a vulnerable sector in our communities. Despite financial constraints these grandmothers struggle against great odds to provide a better life for their granddaughters. In such households, granddaughters are exposed to socialization strategies that are devised to cope with limitations. These strategies impact on the way they construct notions of gender and sexuality. Using qualitative research methodology to investigate the responses to interviews and questionnaires of a selected group of five female teenage learners and their grandmothers at a secondary school in Northdale, Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, I discuss how these learners and their principal carers construct gender and sexuality. I make use of postmodern principles to analyse the impact of changing household patterns and coping strategies on these young women. I discuss the gendered division of labour, their 'perceived' notions about femininity and masculinity and bodies. I focus especially on how grandmothers use their own construction of gender and sexuality in influencing their granddaughters by what they say and also by what they do not say. In this investigation, I include Western theorizing and traditional African teachings about gender construction and sexuality. This study demonstrates that gender is not innate but fluid and that constructions of sexuality can create docile 'feminine' bodies. However, there are indications that these young women are resisting the constructs of their grandmothers to create new discourses of their own. Female agency is a mechanism that can be utilized to generate new subjectivities. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

M.A. (Clinical Psychology) / The present study explores the possible constraining effects of gender and cultural roles on the mental health of Black South African women. The specific focus is on the mental health of professional Black women who have been alienated from their traditional roles, yet find themselves in a context of traditional role prescriptions. In-depth interviews were conducted to obtain qualitative data on the subjective experiences of two professional women, one of which had been diagnosed as having Major Depression. The observations obtained from the case studies support the literature, in that both women experience a considerable amount of role strain; the// most important of which are in congruent role expectations, role ambiguity and role overload. Possible factors contributing to role strain are discussed within the context of a transitional South African society. It has been found that structural and normative variables account for most. of the role strain experienced by the women. The need for new role definitions by both Black professional women and men, as well as a greater role flexibility are emphasized. Research regarding interventions on both individual and societal level are recommended.

M.A. / The rationale behind the study of abused women should be a public and not an individual concern. Acknowledging anti considering abuse of women to be unacceptable is not enough. However, the public needs to be further educated as to its prevalence and seriousness. In the present study an attempt is made to redress some of these differences by studying women abuse in South Africa. The most important aim of the research is to understand the ways in which three abused women have managed to have the courage to relate and be honest about their experiences of abuse that they have suffered for many years. The research study will be based on the qualitative research method. The narrative approach will be integrated, whereby the three abused women will tell their different stories of abuse by their husbands. The researcher has found this study to be of utmost importance in contextualising the insight of women abuse although the sample of the three women does not represent all the abused women in South African context.

D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Child-headed households are becoming increasingly prevalent in the absences of parents, especially in township and rural communities. Parents become absent for different reasons, such as needing to find employment away from home or falling ill and dying. Many extended families can no longer financially afford to care for the children within their own homes. Often different family members will take in siblings as they are unable to accommodate them all in their home due to lack of space or financial resources. As a result siblings would be scattered within the extended family. Child-headed households have become a solution whereby siblings could keep living together as a unit as well as staying within their known environment. Often, however, the responsibility of managing the households would be placed on the adolescent girls due to gender-role division. This could leave the girls vulnerable to the possibility of dropping out of school as managing a household, caring for younger siblings and keeping up with academic responsibilities places adolescent girls under intense pressure. The research focused on the gendered experiences of African adolescent girls from child-headed households in Orlando-West, Soweto. A qualitative research approach was used and the study was conducted by means of a hermeneutic phenomenological case study research design. Feminism, as a paradigm and main theoretical orientation, framed the study and findings. The data collection methods included two focus group interviews, one group of girls and one of boys. Three specifically selected girl participants living within the contexts of a child-headed home were selected. Over eight months and by means of individual interviews, the completion of a booklet and photo-voice activities the participants shared their gendered experiences with me within the contexts of a child-headed household. The findings of the data analysis indicated that adolescent girls from child-headed households specific to this study had to make meaning of their lives whilst still being influenced by patriarchal cultural practices and traditions from the past. The division of household chores in the home as modelled by parents was an instrumental factor in initiating gender inequality. The second theme related to the adolescent girls’ daily struggles in adverse circumstances as they had to make meaning and continually adjust to living arrangements that were not always stable. By virtue of their gender, dangers from the community were persistent. Living as a girl within a child-headed household also meant being confronted daily with the socio-economic hardships that influenced being able to attain academic support at school, and purchasing toiletries, food and daily necessities for their families.