HIV/AIDS reflects many of the stresses and strains in contemporary South Africa and must be considered in relation to the socio-political, economic and cultural factors that the epidemic is deeply rooted in. This study investigated how secondary schools have responded to the problems of HIV/AIDS and the challenges faced by educators in the implementation of the National HIV/AIDS School Policy and the Life skills programme. It also evaluated the Life-skills, HIV/AIDS programme implemented in three selected schools in the eThekwini region. A multiphase research design, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, was utilised in this study. In Phase One, face- to face interview schedules were administered with principals from 74 secondary schools. Phase Two comprised in-depth interviews with educators as well as interactive workshops with Grade Nine learners and their parents from three selected schools. In Phase Three one focus group with district co-ordinators and an in-depth interview was held with the national co-ordinator for the Lifeskills, HIV/AIDS programme from the Department of Education. The findings illustrate that there is a lack of institutional capacity at schools to deal adequately with the problem of HIV/AIDS. With the maturation and devastating effects of the epidemic at both micro (individual and families) and mezzo (school and community) levels, there is a need to move beyond sexuality education and knowledge about HIV/AIDS to include treatment, care and support services to learners, their families and educators who are either infected and or affected by the epidemic. Five key strategies are recommended as a fram~work to create an enabling environment in which not only risk reduction among the youth can occur but the effects of the maturation of the epidemic can be dealt with at the school, household and community level. Drawing on the practice elements embedded in structural theory and its application to HIV/AIDS intervention programmes in schools, recommendations are made for the re-conceptualisation of social work practice in contemporary South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.

In the recent past, teachers in South African secondary schools have begun to give lessons on life skills, sexuality and HIV/AIDS. The lessons are located within the curriculum in the learning areas of Life Orientation and Life Skills. These lessons are guided by policy documents which regulate what, when and how much information the learners must have access to. Issues explicitly concerning gender are addressed in these lessons as well. Although policy documents provide clear guidelines as to how policy should be implemented, teachers are still experiencing difficulties delivering life skills, sexuality and HIV/AIDS lessons. Consequently lessons pertaining to these issues are usually minimised in favour of less sensitive topics. Many reasons have been suggested for the poor implementation of these lessons, some of which include inadequate teacher training, a lack of support structures and services, and teacher attitudes and beliefs. Although the way policy is implemented is cause for concern, this dissertation focuses on the assumptions about gender that are concealed by policy documents, which in turn, impacts on the way these documents are interpreted and implemented by teachers. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse national and provincial South African education policy documents for the gendered assumptions they make about teachers of life skills, sexuality and HIV/AIDS education. Although policy documents are "based on principles of gender equity" (Tallis, 2000: 58), this research tries to establish whether any gender assumptions exist about teachers of life skills, sexuality and HIV/AIDS education, that limit how effectual these policy documents are at the stage of implementation. The gendered neutrality of these documents conforms to the requirements of the South African Constitution, in that they are non-discriminatory. Given the inequalities of the apartheid era, it is possible to regard the use of genderless language in policy documents as progress towards the goals of gender equity. However, not differentiating between males and females is also problematic. Unequal gender power relations that exist between males and females ensure that their experiences are not the same. There are unintended consequences that flow from the use of gender-neutral terminology in policy documents and these include that the gendered realities of teachers are not taken into account and this may well be a reason for the reluctance or inability of teachers successfully to teach lessons on sexuality and HIV/AIDS. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2005.

High school adolescent's suicidal behaviour caused a concern to the Umzimkulu community and the multi - disciplinary team in the local Psychiatric institution during the years 1997 - 1999 . The purpose the study was to identify and describe the charactics of adolescents who committed suicide. Rutter's (1995) model of risk. resilience and recovery has been used as a theoretical frame work for the study. A descriptive, exploratory case study design is most suitable for the incidence of suicide at Umzimkulu District .The case study approach was best suited as it assists in an indepth study focussing on contemporary phenomena with sum real life contexts . The distinctive need for the case study design arises out the desire to understand complex psycho-social phenomena of adolescent suicide (Yin, 1989).Each adolescent who committed suicide over the last two years in Umzimkulu District will form a case . All data about the particular person will be the case description Adolescents who committed suicide were identified from the records at the police intelligence office of Umzimkulu Police Station. Parents, identified friends, teachers and health workers who had known the adolescents. Semi structured interviews with open ended questions were used. Interview schedules for teachers, parents and close friends differed slightly. A tape recorder for later transcription was utilised. To analyse the data, Ruttter's model was utilised to do cross case analysis. Results according to Rutter's model, were that, due to inconstant support received by the adolescents, high levels of stress in early child hood, had left them insuffiently resilient to with stand the problems they encountered during adolescence. / Thesis (M.Cur.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

This research study is a qualitative research study which examines the experiences of adolescents in Soshanguve who are participating in sport. The aim of the study is to explore the value of sport participation as a therapeutic tool. The problem statement is how adolescents experience the effects of sport participation. The research study was conducted using ethnomethodology which examines how people make sense of their daily lives. The intention was to focus on how the participants interpreted their everyday activities. The absence of symptoms that one would expect from the participants was viewed as an indicator of therapeutic effects of sport participation. There appeared to be an absence of depressive and anxious symptoms, no substance use and sound academic results. Participants also displayed a generally positive outlook on their futures. The conclusion was that sport participation has some benefits for adolescents. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Social work / M.A. (Social Work)

The phenomenon of teenage pregnancy among school-going youth is on the increase in South Africa, despite the existence of a number of intervention programmes. Although both curricular and co-curricular awareness programmes targeting this phenomenon are currently employed within South African schools, these programmes have patently not met with much success, since the problem remains acute. It was the question why these programmes are not succeeding in alleviating the problem that prompted my interest in undertaking this study. Based on literature that suggests that those programmes that are successful in reaching the youth are designed through participatory processes, rather than being designed by outside experts, my thesis proposes that prevention programmes that are designed and implemented by the youth for the youth may be more successful in helping them to make healthy decisions in terms of their sexual behaviour. This study attempted to engage youth in a participatory way in identifying and exploring their perceptions of teenage pregnancy and using the knowledge thus gained to design, implement and evaluate prevention strategies in their school. The study is informed by social learning theory and adopted a participatory action research (PAR) design, which is located in a critical paradigm. I purposefully recruited twenty-four youths (14 females and 10 males) to participate. The primary research question that guided this study was: “How can peer educators be engaged to create prevention strategies to reduce teenage pregnancy and its impacts?” The following sub-questions were identified from the primary research question: What do learners themselves know feel and experience with regard to the causes and effects of teenage pregnancy How might a participatory methodology help learners to create relevant and contextualised strategies for addressing teenage pregnancy? How can such strategies be implemented in a school system? What recommendations could be made for addressing teenage pregnancy in a contextualised way? The research was conducted in two cycles. In Cycle One, data was generated through two focus group discussions, led by a young researcher from the community to encourage openness and honesty. In addition through snowball sampling, six teenage mothers and two teenage fathers agreed to be interviewed individually. The same questions were asked in the two discussions and the individual interviews, namely: “What do you know, feel and think about teenage pregnancy?” In the first cycle, I responded to my first sub-research question. Interviews, drawings and focus group discussions were used to generate data. Three themes emerged from the data to provide insight into how the youth at the school perceived the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy. The findings from this cycle revealed certain tensions between what youth said they needed and what adults, such as teachers and parents, thought they needed to know. The participating teenagers regarded themselves as sexual beings, while the adults in their sphere of influence preached abstinence, moralised or merely cited the facts, without entering into any discussion of how young people could deal with social pressures and better protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy. The participating youth were clearly aware of how to prevent pregnancy, but the social barriers to using condoms or contraceptive pills were a stumbling block. They possessed knowledge of the potential consequences of risky behaviour, but this did not stop them from engaging in such behaviour. In the second cycle of the research, the participants used the findings of the first cycle to develop prevention messages and strategies to convey these messages to their peers. They used participatory visual methods to accomplish this. The findings from this cycle revealed that a peer education approach helped participants to increase maturity in sexual decision-making, had a positive effect on the learning and acquisition of new skills, and improved critical thinking relating to sexuality. The study also had a positive impact on other learners’ knowledge and the attitudes displayed by both learners and teachers, and also led to improvements in school policies related to sexuality education. It is contended that the study contributed important theoretical and methodological insights. Knowledge generated from the study could make a contribution to the field of sexuality education and how it should be approached in schools, particularly in communities facing social and economic adversity. The methodological contribution of this study provided guidelines and theory on how participatory action research and participatory methods can be implemented in schools to enable youth to influence change in their schools, not only regarding teenage pregnancy, but also other social issues.

M.A. (Psychology) / Spatial ability as a cognitive ability has for some time been recognised as a distinct component in the intellectual make-up of the individual. Since the earliest identification of spatial ability in the 1920's, interest has been shown in the fuller understanding of this ability. Many controversies still exist since spatial ability has yet to be defined in a definitive manner. Spatial ability has received relatively little attention. Since a relationship between spatial ability and occupational success has been established, more interest has been shown in this field. Spatial ability is as important as language for survival in the business world and more so in the technical field. Spatial ability is synonymous with the socalled "minor" hemisphere. The importance of the "minor" hemisphere and in particular the link between the right hemisphere and the language centres of the left hemisphere, has recently been. recognised. This recognition is found where the right hemisphere together with the damaged left hemisphere may be included in a rehabilitation programme. Spatial ability is the product of environmental influences which include child rearing practices, education and nutrition. Other influences are of a genetic, hormonal and neurological nature. Associated the concept terms, the associated with of left with the cognitive functions of the brain, is lateralisation of functions.

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. (Psychology) / Noller and Callan ( 1991) are of opinion that the success with which the adolescent copes with the main tasks of adolescence is determined by the family environment. Any failure of the adolescent to cope with his developmental tasks effectively, will prevent him from coping successfully with life's demands in future, and cause psychological and social problems (Jooste, 1989). The purpose of this cross-cultural study was to investigate those family qualities that contribute to successful coping with demands of life. The investigation was done within different culture groups as well as within different socio-economic status (SES) groups ...