This study focused on the ‘silence of the prophets’ in the post-apartheid era. It sought to understand why the prophets, who spoke out so vehemently against the injustices of apartheid, did not speak out against the injustices of the government after 1994 even when it became blatantly apparent that corruption was beginning to unfold on various levels, especially with the introduction of the so-called Arms Deal. Accordingly, the study singles out Drs Allan Boesak and Frank Chikane who were among the fiercest opponents of the apartheid regime before 1994. The study traced the impact of the ideological forces that influenced Boesak and Chikane’s ideological thinking from the early Slave Religion, Black Theology in the USA and Liberation Theology in Latin America. Black Theology and Black Consciousness first made their appearance in South Africa in the 1970s, with Boesak and Chikane, among others, as early advocates of these movements. In 1983, Boesak and Chikane took part in the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. This movement became the voice of the voiceless in an era when the members of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan African Congress (PAC) had been sent into exile. It also signalled a more inclusive and reconciliatory shift in Boesak and Chikane’s Ideological thinking. Whereas Black Consciousness sought to exclude white people from participating in the struggle for liberation, the UDF united all under one banner without consideration for colour, race, religion or creed. After the advent of liberation in South Africa in 1994, it became increasingly obvious that corruption was infiltrating many levels of the new government. But the prophets were silent. Why were they silent? The study presents an analysis of the possible reasons for this silence based on interviews with Boesak and Chikane as role players and draws conclusions based on their writings both before and after 1994. Overall, the study concluded that they were silent because they had become part of the new political structures that had taken over power. To sum up, the study demonstrates the irony of prophetic oscillation and concludes that no prophet is a prophet for all times. Thus, as a new democracy unfolds in South Africa, the situation demands new prophets with a new message. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Phil. (Theology)

This research programme endeavours to develop, implement and evaluate an effective method of offering psychosocial support to vulnerable children. Vulnerability is defined by trained community members as including children who are experiencing especially difficult lives. The forms of difficulties experienced by the children has usually been a consequence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty combined with other psychosocial risk factors, child abuse (especially child sexual abuse) and violence. This community based programme incorporates four phases of intervention, only two of which were the focus of summative evaluation. However, due to the integrated nature of the programme it was necessary to implement and document the various phases of the intervention programme: (i) community selection and mobilisation; (ii) the 5-day Sensitisation Programme (SP) sensitises adult community volunteers to the psychosocial needs of vulnerable children; (iii) the 15-session Structured Group Therapy Programme (SGTP) enables children to work through past adversities and to build resilience within small groups of peers in a programme where community volunteers served as apprentice facilitators under the supervision, guidance and ethical responsibility of qualified psychologists; (iv) community based initiatives to offer on-going of PSS activities to vulnerable children in each of the partnering communities. Nine partnering communities were selected, three township, periurban and rural communities. This programme was not effective in the informal settlements as it was not possible for these communities to place children as a priority. A qualitative summative evaluation of the SP took place using post workshop evaluation questionnaires, focus group discussions conducted by an independent researcher and an audit of the community based initiatives that developed as a result of participation in the SP. The SGTP was summatively evaluated using a 4-way Factorial design with one within-subject and three between-subject conditions: to investigate the age of the subjects, the geographic regions and gender variables. The 741 children formed five experimental and control conditions to conduct various combinations of the above-mentioned phases programmes and to adequately control for the many confounding variables. Pre- and post intervention assessments were conducted by trained community research assistants. The dependent variable measures were the Culture Free Self Esteem Inventory (Battle, 1992), the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (Biere & Elliot, 1997), the Reynolds Depression Scale for Children (Reynolds, 1989), the Social Support Scale (Beale Spencer, Cole, Jones, and Phillips Swanson, 1997) and the Connor's Parent Questionnaire Connors, 1998). Multivariate analysis evaluated the effectiveness of the various experimental and control conditions. The results indicate that the SGTP, run in combination with the SP, is an effective intervention strategy in that it alleviates symptoms of self-reported depression and other psychosocial manifestations of distress as well as decreased the number and severity of symptoms reported by primary caregivers, and leads to increased access to perceived social support. The SP and the SGTP conducted independently of each other have limited benefits and as such can be considered to be partially effective. The children who had formed part of the non-vulnerable control group felt left out of the programme and report an increase in symptomatology and decreased access to social support. While this community-based programme can be considered to be an effective method of therapeutic intervention and of offering psychosocial support to vulnerable children, further research is needed to consider the cost-effectiveness, the sustainability and ways in which those children who do not participate can still can benefit. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

The central issue in this study is political socialisation and its implications within a rural setting in South Africa with a particular focus on Calais village in Limpopo Province. The aim of the study is to determine how adult residents of Calais village, are politically socialised; and furthermore to assess the impact of the socialisation process on the residents’ political behaviour within a democratic South Africa. In order to achieve the research purpose, face-to-face interviews were conducted with forty (40) adult residents in Calais village. The study revealed that the respondents were politically socialised by the media, immediate family, peers, extended family, political parties, local municipality, school, traditional leadership, ward committee and religious institutions. The media were the most important agent, while the religious institutions were the least. Furthermore, NGOs and trade unions were not socialisation agents in Calais village. The socialisation process had an impact on the respondents’ political behaviour in terms of political interest, party identification, political beliefs, efficacy, knowledge, awareness and participation. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

Income inequality is prevalent in both developed and developing countries. In all of these countries there are workers who are highly paid while others are given very low wages. The disgruntled low-paid workers in these countries usually force their governments to intervene in the labour market and introduce the redistributive policies like the minimum wage policy. Governments usually accede to these demands of low-paid workers because they do not want to invite political troubles. That led to an increase in the number of countries using minimum wage policy as redistributive mechanism in the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Minimum wage policy is, however, a very controversial issue. Supporters of minimum wages regard the policy as ideal because it provides social protection to un-unionised and low-paid workers with little or no bargaining power. The opponents of the policy on the other hand argue that wages in the labour market should be determined by the forces of demand and supply. It is argued that wages that are artificially determined lead to the rationing of jobs and displacement of the very same low-paid workers that the policy is intended to protect, as employers are forced to replace unskilled workers with skilled workers and machines. South Africa’s agricultural sector workers were among some of the least paid workers in the country. Employers were able to exploit these workers because they were not protected by any labour legislation that workers in other sectors were afforded. Farm workers were only protected by common law. It was only in the 1990s that labour legislations like Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Labour Relations Act, Employment Equity Act, Extension of Security Act and Tenure Act and Skills Development Act were extended to the agricultural sector in an attempt to protect the working conditions of vulnerable workers. These acts as well failed to improve the working conditions of the agricultural sector workers and that prompted the Minister of Labour to instruct the Director-General of Labour to conduct the necessary investigations to see if it could be necessary to introduce minimum standard of employment in the sector, including minimum wages. That led to the adoption of Sectoral Determination 8 of 2003 which introduced sectoral minimum wage in the sector. The sectoral minimum wage which came into effect in 2003 was increased annually by the rate of inflation plus one per cent. It was only in 2013, after the Western Cape farm workers went on strike for higher wages, that the minimum wage was raised by 52 per cent. As argued by the opponents of minimum wages, job losses occurred among unskilled workers. The implementation of minimum wage policy in the agricultural sector was problematic, as the policy was not properly complied with due to several compliance concerns. Apart from there being insufficient inspectors to monitor and investigate cases of non-compliance, inspectors were under-trained and under-equipped. Fines imposed on offenders were too small, which further encouraged disregard for the policy. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

A group of eight mothers of differently abled children undertook a research journey, reflecting on the sorrow and pain, as well as the hope and humour of our lives. Narrative pastoral practices guided our conversations, and prophetic and political challenges our actions to bring about change in our lived reality. Reflective and summarising letters after each group meeting played a central part In the research. The letters were structured to make visible the "taken-for-granted truths", which informed us about who and what we are. The alternative stories of preferred mothering practices that emerged during and between sessions were centralised in the letters. The group compiled letters of appeal to the faith community, doctors, nursing staff, therapists and teachers in order to make them more sensitive towards differently abled people and their families. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis interrogates the dynamics of urbanisation, gender and migration in contemporary Johannesburg through the voices and images of migrant women from the rest of the African continent, now living in Johannesburg. By revealing the lives of a population group that is often hidden from view, it provides details of women’s migration to Johannesburg, and their everyday encounters in the host city. Using these experiences, it sheds light on contemporary migration and urbanisation processes on the continent, expanding our knowledge of the contours of power that shape urban life in Johannesburg and elsewhere. Using the metaphor of the “border” or “borderlands” this thesis explores how women negotiate, cross and remain “in between” the multiple physical, social and imagined borders they encounter in the city. It finds that analyses that read the city through class relationships and capital accumulation do not give adequate weight to the multiple identities and forms of solidarity that exist in cities. Women’s narratives reveal that while their class is an important identity, other identities such as ethnicity, nationality and gender also powerfully shape solidarity and modes of belonging in the city. Moreover, state-centric governance frameworks that have dominated urban policy and scholarly work on the continent are often blinded to the ways in which urban dweller’s actions shift our understanding of the nature and character of state power. Women’s encounters with the state reveal the multiple regimes of power that constitute the city, and the ways in which these subvert, fragment, and yet at times reinforce state power in unpredictable ways. The epistemological approach and findings of this research bring to the fore broader questions around the paradigmatic lenses used to read, interpret and understand African cities. Dominant paradigms tend to draw on western models of cities in ways that undermine African cities’ empirical realities and theoretical potential. For as long as scholars and policy makers fail to see African urbanity in its own terms rather than in relation to how cities elsewhere have evolved, we will continue to miss critical socio-political and economic dynamics that are shaping urbanisation in the twenty first century. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology))

The traditional theories of development concentrated on stimulating economic growth and ignored the social aspects involved. Despite the massive injection of donor funds, the situation of the poor deteriorated. The projects in Tembisa are an example of this, as the community was not involved in the assessing of needs or designing of interventions and were only the implementers. The evaluation offers an alternative developmental paradigm that has been used with success in other similar circumstances – the sustainable livelihood approach (SLA). The SLA contends that urban communities should become planners, initiators and executors of local development in order for any transformation to occur. Urban communities have to change their behaviour and attitudes, be willing to accept change, and to take ownership of the projects. The facilitators, NGOs and government have to be willing to unlearn their traditional ways, listen, and accept that they are not the only experts in the field. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / The second fully democratic election in South Africa is scheduled to take place in May 1999. In the five years since the first election, it appears that very little attention has been paid to the political literacy of the electorate in general, and the youth in particular. The purpose of this study was to establish adolescents' level of political knowledge and whether they are able to think critically about political issues or not. The first part of the literature study which was concerned with critical thinking revealed that the major aspects of critical thinking are: deductive reasoning, inductive inference, recognition of assumptions, credibility, and problem solving. The second part of the literature study was an analysis of which factors may play a role in the development of critical thinking of an adolescent. with particular reference to a political context. The third part was an examination of important current political and social issues. These were: the new Constitution. Truth and Reconciliation Commission, housing, land redistribution, education, labour, health, crime, political violence, environment, and the next election. A reliable measuring instrument was developed in order to measure adolescents' knowledge of political issues, and their ability to think critically about these issues. The results of the empirical study revealed that intellectual potential and academic achievement were significantly related to critical thinking ability, while gender, environment, and personality appeared not to play a role. There was a significant correlation between political knowledge and critical thinking in a political context, implying that critical thinking is subject-specific. Cultural background also played a significant role in critical thinking in a political context. In terms of political knowledge, boys were found to be at a significantly higher level than girls. The subjects from urban areas were also at a significantly higher level than those from rural areas. There was also a positive correlation between intellectual potential, academic achievement, and political knowledge. Finally, some recommendations for improving the levels of political knowledge and critical thinking abilities with regard to political issues of South African adolescents were given. / Die tweede ten valle demokratiese verkiesing in Suid-Afrika is geskeduleer om in Mei 1999 plaas te vind. In die vyf jaar sedert die vorige verkiesing is baie min aandag gegee aan die politieke geletterdheid van die verkiesingspubliek in die algemeen en die jeug in besonder. Die doel van hierdie studie was om adolessente se vlak van politieke kennis te bepaal en om vas te stel of hulle in staat is om krities oar politieke kwessies na te dink. Die eerste deel van die literatuurstudie wat verband hou met kritiese denke het uitgewys dat die hoofaspekte van kritiese denke die volgende is: deduktiewe redenering, induktiewe inferensies, herkenning van aannames, geloofwaardigheid en probleemoplossing. Die tweede deel van die literatuurstudie behels 'n analise van die faktore wat 'n rol kan speel in die ontwikkeling van die kritiese denke van die adolessent, met spesifieke verwysing na 'n politieke konteks. Die derde deel is 'n ondersoek na belangrike teenswoordige politieke en sosiale kwessies. Hierdie kwessies sluit in: die nuwe Grondwet, die Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie, behuising, herverdeling van grand, opvoeding, arbeid, gesondheid, misdaad, politieke geweld, die omgewing en die volgende verkiesing. 'n Betroubare meetinstrument om adolessente se kennis van politieke kwessies asook hul vermoe om krities daaroor na te dink, is ontwikkel. Die resultate van die empiriese ondersoek het aangetoon dat intellektuele potensiaal en akademiese prestasie betekenisvol verband hou met kritiese denkvermoe, terwyl geslag, omgewing en persoonlikheid klaarblyklik nie 'n rol speel nie. Daar is ook 'n betekenisvolle korrelasie tussen politieke kennis en kritiese denke in 'n politieke konteks wat impliseer dat kritiese denke vakspesifiek is. Kulturele agtergrond speel ook 'n betekenisvolle rol in kritiese denke in 'n politieke konteks. Ten opsigte van politieke kennis is daar bevind dat seuns op 'n betekenisvolle hoer vlak is as dogters. Respondente uit stedelike gebiede is oak op 'n betekenisvolle hoer vlak as diegene uit plattelandse gebiede. Oaar is oak 'n betekenisvolle korrelasie tussen intellektuele potensiaal, akademiese prestasie en politieke kennis. Ten slotte is aanbevelings gemaak om die vlakke van politieke kennis en kritiese denkvermoens met betrekking tot politieke aangeleenthede by Suid-Afrikaanse adolessente te verbeter. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The purpose of the study was to investigate Grade 12 learners’ perceptions of their vulnerability to HIV infections in order to gain insight of their experiences on HIV and AIDS at schools in the Eastern Cape. This was done by using a mixed method approach where focus-group discussions and questionnaires were used to gather data. This study found that the teaching of HIV and AIDS or Life Skills is not adequate. It is possible that the lack of learner involvement in the design and implementation of the programmes could be one of the reasons why there is low participation by learners in intervention programmes in schools, as noted in this study. There is need for strong advocacy on the use of condoms as a preventive measure against unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) including HIV. More involvement in extra-curricular activities would help learners to develop self-esteem and the ability to resist drugs and other risky sexual behaviours. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV & AIDS)

Trade unions have been in existence for many years. Although their introduction was generally met with resistance, since their establishment trade unions have been important agents of social change worldwide. Over the years, trade unions have been involved in politics and other societal activities. In South Africa, trade unions for many years not only fought for worker’s rights within the workplace but also beyond the workplace. Trade unions started as friendly societies aimed at assisting their members with various matters, including offering financial help for education purposes and also in cases of illnesses. Although the main purpose of trade unions is to regulate relations between employees and their employers, trade unions perform other functions in society which can be broadly referred to as their social responsibility role. Unlike corporate social responsibility, which is recognised and formalised, trade union social responsibility is not, with the role and importance of social responsibility for trade unions having been largely ignored. This thesis aims at changing this by investigating their core responsibilities and their social responsibilities and subsequently making recommendations on how trade unions could recognise and accommodate their social responsibilities in their activities. It also considers factors that could assist trade unions in fulfilling their social responsibilities. Trade unions generally obtain legislative support for their core responsibilities, but not their social responsibilities; however this should not obstruct trade unions in such endeavours. As modern organisations it is high time that trade unions make a contribution towards sustainable development through their social responsibility role. / Private Law / LLD