Master's degree in Research Psychology Research report, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016. / This study explored the stories of South African black female postgraduates, in particular, focusing on family dynamics in their childhoods and the role these relationships played in their academic development. South African higher education is a site of contestations as access opens up for students previously excluded from universities. However access and success continue to be racialized and gendered hence black women are unevenly represented in higher education particularly at postgraduate level. This study brings forth stories of women who have succeeded in this context, exploring questions of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1994).Thematic analysis highlights predominant themes across the narratives of these women. There is a very strong thread across the narratives that these women feel that their academic achievement is primarily due to hard work and a ‘natural’ or intrinsic intellectual talent that was recognised by their families and teachers from a young age. Despite the emphasis on individual aptitude, the findings also highlight participants’ recognition of the value of support from family in their schooling and even continuing into their lives as young adult postgraduate students. The nature of family dynamics in these women’s childhood and adult lives was revealed, including, the friendship that characterises daughter-mother relationships, the absence of fathers, and the role of grandmothers and other members of the extended family and community networks . It is worth noting that all participants talk of the sudden movement from public township schools to private or Model C schools that disrupts their narratives of schooling. The lack of reading in the childhood homes of some of these women contradicts the common assumption that a reading home environment is vital for the development of the appropriate cultural capital necessary for academic success. Instead, it is evident that these multigenerational families provide a range of support that allows learning to take place, including emotional and financial support, providing critical social capital. / GR2017

Much of the research on career development of black secondary school learners (Hickson & White, 1989, Ntshangase, 1995) has been focused on black learners in relatively affluent black areas, particularly townships. The aim of this study was to investigate career development and exploration in a sample of black learners from an under-resourced school in Pietermaritzburg. They were generally of a low socio economic status. In order to assess the learners' career maturity, a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used. The central aim of this research project was to undertake focus group discussions. In order to facilitate career development, the discussions were learner-driven. These discussions were run over five sessions and allowed for an investigation of contextual influences on career development. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collected was conducted, in order to ascertain the effect of the focus group discussions on the learners' career maturity levels. The analysis showed a marked improvement in total career maturity scores of the experimental group as was measured by the Career Development Questionnaire. No significant changes were observed in the total maturity scores of the comparison group. Qualitative analysis of the discussions showed that. the learners gained a great deal from one another and together they discovered and shared career information and life skills. The results of this study showed the extent to which black learners from under-resourced areas are marginalized. They do not get the same exposure as their urban, suburban and township counterparts. The results further highlighted the plight of these learners whose contextual realities affect their career development. These findings have implications for policy makes at the level of the school, the government and community in order to reduce uncertainty and to promote career maturity in these learners. It is suggested that curriculum packages include grass-roots, community based programmes, that are sensitive to contextual realities which impact on the career development of rural black learners. / Thesis (M.A)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

This thesis is a reception analysis using qualitative interviews to investigate black students' watching of a South African soap opera, Generations, taking into account the context of a largely white South African university campus. The findings of this study are that students find pleasure in talking about Generations and hold seemingly contradictory views on whether it is 'realistic' or not. The analysis concludes that watching Generations does serve to affirm these students' black identity, since there is a particular need to do so on a campus where black students witness and experience racial discrimination.

D.Litt. et Phil. / This research project involved the design, development and evaluation of a model to enhance career self-efficacy. The model is based on social cognitive theory and is intended for use amongst school-leavers in disadvantaged South African communities. The project attempted to move away from theories used in the past, which catered mainly for the white population, towards a theory that (a) is applicable to various ethnic/socio-economic groups, (b) has practical as well as theoretical value, and (c) highlights important aspects, such as that of contextual, personal and experiential factors. In order to assist the researcher in developing practical solutions for the identified problem, namely, the inadequate career guidance services in the disadvantaged sector, the intervention research model was utilized. Intervention research is characterized by its ability to provide researchers with systematic and purposeful guidance for real-world problems. Programme development involved working through the requisite phases, namely, problem analysis, design, development and impact evaluation. In each phase requirements are stipulated and methodologies prescribed. During phase one, the problem analysis phase, the researcher identified disadvantaged school-leavers as being a population that is at risk, due to the historical lack of career guidance afforded them in the past. Contact was made with the Auxiliary Services of the Department of Education in the Westrand, which is tasked with the provision of guidance services to the disadvantaged schools in the area. Information was gathered and synthesized in order to assess the current state of career development and guidance, and to identify elements that would contribute to the design of a suitable and effective intervention. Based on the aforementioned, the researcher decided that there was a need for the development of a programme, as no existing programme appeared to cater adequately for the problems identified.

The aim of the research was to determine the extent by wt)ich the home, school and community can provide emotional support to secondary school children. A literature survey focused on these variables. This was followed by the empirical investigation and it was found that there was a significant and positive correlation in the scores of males and females and for all age groups in relation to emotional problems experienced by secondary school children in their homes, schools and communities as a result of external forces (such as their experiences with family members, teachers at school, peer group members and other community members) and internal forces (such as their own physical, social, intellectual, moral and emotional development). This was followed by findings and recommendations for family, teachers at school, community members and the government. / Psychology of Education / Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of South Africa, 1998.

This research project explored how young women involved in political organizations make sense of apartheid history and how they appropriate that history into their identities. Nine black women students who were involved in political organizations were interviewed from the University of Witswatersrand. The women that were chosen participated in a narrative style interview about their lives and the history of apartheid. The data were then analyzed using narrative thematic analysis and organised in the temporal zones of past, present and future. The analysis revealed the complexities of race, class and gender and how these are embodied, enacted and made sense of in the construction and reconstruction of the identities of these young women. In imagining and reflecting on the apartheid past, race was understood through both distant, public narratives and through personal and intimate family narratives. Gendered roles or positions were talked about in reference to three thematic symbols of women as nurturers, iconic wives and heroes. In progression from the apartheid past and its particular, separated and structured understanding of race and gender, the journey into the present and future, reflects increasingly complex, dynamic and multilayered understandings. In particular, the conflation of race and class under apartheid is beginning to fragment and these young women are thinking through their positionality in terms of personal class mobility and simultaneous identification as black and committed to the continuation of race struggles. It is also very clear that the question of gender equality is now very prominent for these young women as they navigate their roles in political leadership in the present and envisage themselves in the future.

The context for this study is the period leading up to and the four years since the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. It is a critical exploration of black students' responses to university discourses as they begin their degrees, and an analysis of the extent to which Critical Language Awareness can be used to facilitate a greater understanding of institutional conventions and practices. It includes a brief consideration of students' school experiences and then explores their perceptions of the university as a whole as well as of individual texts. The way in which language encodes asymmetrical power relations and is used to construct students' subjectivities within the institution is of central concern. The research methodology adopted here is critical action research. The study consists of two research cycles, a short pilot study and a longer eight week language teaching programme. This second cycle was carried out in 1991 at the University of Natal during a time marked by unprecedented political fluidity and the establishment of new institutional and social structures. The impact of these changes has been felt at every level as racial separation, uniformity and ethnic homogeneity, which were once dominant social norms, have been replaced by the movement towards an integrated social order defined by its diversity, difference, and multiplicity. Because the research process is inseparable from its socio-political context, a theoretical perspective which attempts to theorise multiplicity and contradiction has been adopted here. Insights from postmodern thought are therefore central to this work and have facilitated the interrogation and, at times, the rewriting of many aspects of critical social theory, critical pedagogy and critical action research. The immediate context for this study is Learning, Language and Logic, a first-year course whose primary aim is the acquisition of academic literacy. Over a period of four years, the two action research cycles were developed and integrated into the curriculum. The first was a short intervention during which students analysed three university texts and the second, central cycle was an eight week programme which introduced them to the central principles of Critical Language Awareness. It was designed to provide students entering the university with the opportunity to explore unfamiliar aspects of the university environment and to analyse a range of texts drawn from its discourses. The primary method of analysis of the data was Critical Discourse Analysis but a content analysis of some of the data was also undertaken. The results of this research provide a strong indication that the integration of the principles of Critical Language Awareness into a first year course in academic literacy adds a crucial dimension to students' understanding of the university environment. It provides them with linguistic insights from which they can further develop the ability to analyse their educational context, to respond critically to academic texts and to understand the roles that they can play within the university. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

The aim of the research was to determine the extent by wt)ich the home, school and community can provide emotional support to secondary school children. A literature survey focused on these variables. This was followed by the empirical investigation and it was found that there was a significant and positive correlation in the scores of males and females and for all age groups in relation to emotional problems experienced by secondary school children in their homes, schools and communities as a result of external forces (such as their experiences with family members, teachers at school, peer group members and other community members) and internal forces (such as their own physical, social, intellectual, moral and emotional development). This was followed by findings and recommendations for family, teachers at school, community members and the government. / Psychology of Education / Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of South Africa, 1998.

This study attempts to explore, theoretically and empirically, the experience of being black in a predominantly white university. It is more specifically concerned with perceived interaction between members of different cultural and ethnic groups, namely, between black and white. Using the existential-phenomenological method the experience of seven subjects, both male and female, were explicated. This explication revealed that black students become aware of their "difference" during interaction with members of the dominant white group. The black students perceive the behaviour of the white-dominant group to be racist and this creates a great deal of latent hostility, anger, and resentment. It is suggested that a programme be developed to diffuse the conflict situation during intergroup interaction at university.

M.A. / It is a well-known fact that South Africans of all races are a high risk population for the development of coronary heart disease and hypertension . More recent statistics indicate that cardiovascular disease caused 12 % of deaths amongst black South Africans in 1994 (Webster, 1996). Risk factors for CHI) can be grouped into four domains : Biomedical (e.g. hypertension, family history), behavioural (e.g. substance intake), sociodemographic (e.g. socio - economic status) and personality (e.g. Type A Behaviour). While there is a general agreement on many of the risk factors for CHIC, there are many more which are still being debated such as the influence of offspring parental heart disease and hypertension and coronary - prone behaviour. In a developing country, such as South Africa, with its heterogeneous population, it seemed that cardiovascular diseases are assuming epidemiological proportions among both White and Black South Africans, and thus appears necessary to establish whether Black patients with cardiovascular disease exhibits the TABP, closely related with diseases of the cardiovascular system among Whites. Els (1987) noted that stress associated with lifestyle changes in Black urbanisation in South Africa, not only showed psychological markers of CHD, but also physiological markers, such as substance intake. A cohort of 67 Black South African university students (38 male & 29 female), with a mean age of 23 was selected. The experimental groups being children of parents with hypertension and heart disease and the controls being children of normotensive parents and without a history of heart disease. A battery of tests were used to measure TAB, depression, hostility, anger and substance consumption. Results indicated that the experimental groups showed a significantly higher index of Type A Behaviour (p < 0, 01) than the controls and there was a significant correlation in terms of Parental hypertension and parental heart disease with coronary - prone behaviour (anger, hostility and depression) as well as substance consumption.