No abstract

This mini review explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. We conducted a rapid review of the literature across three databases, with a particular focus on the African continent. Few studies have specifically focused on adolescents in Africa and this paper contributes to this paucity of research. Findings revealed the unintended consequences of the pandemic. Studies across several countries showed that the respective lockdown measures restricted adolescents' access to sexual and reproductive health services. The literature also showed increases in adolescent pregnancies during the lockdown, along with increases in reports of sexual violence against adolescents. We conclude this paper by offering recommendations to address these unintended consequences and potentially improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health in African communities.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of intimate partner violence in the world. The South African mass media have been recognised as playing an important role in influencing individual cognitions of social issues, including intimate partner violence. However, few studies have investigated how such violence is represented within the South African media. This article explores how the print media constructs men’s perpetrated violence against female partners, attending in particular to how and to what effect extreme acts of violence are represented in data from three newspapers that attract the highest readership in the Western Cape. Guided by social representations theory, an inductive thematic analysis was conducted to identify social representations of intimate partner violence as evident in 17 articles reporting on men’s perpetration of violence against intimate female partners. The analysis suggests that this form of violence is predominantly represented in terms of extreme acts of physical violence. This representation functions to reduce violence against women to a simplistic binary of male perpetration and female victimhood, undermining the complexities of this social phenomenon in South Africa. The article highlights the importance of representing intimate partner violence in a more comprehensive manner.

Over the last four decades, increasing numbers of disabled students have entered institutions of higher education worldwide. Since 1994, the South African Government has been committed to transforming educational policy to redress the past oppression of disabled persons. Educational policies, legislation and interventions have been implemented to promote inclusive education. However, recent studies have found disabled students continue to be excluded and discriminated against at institutions of higher education in South Africa. In this analytical autoethnography, I describe my personal experiences of stuttering at two South African universities, exploring personal life stories through Felt's (2017) concept of academic chronopolitics. I argue that chronopolitics, which exists in institutions of higher learning, acts as a barrier to inclusion and participation for disabled students, specifically those who stutter. I advocate for the creation of spaces that are enabling and inclusive for all disabled students.

The past 3 decades have seen researchers increasingly examine masculinity within the context of disability. However, there remains a gap in impairment-specific research. The present study seeks to examine the discourses of masculinities among young adult men in Western Cape Province who stutter. Semistructured interviews and focus groups were used to collect data from 15 men who stutter. In analyzing the data, a combination of discursive and applied psychological perspectives was used. Specific attention was given to the emotional processes that men experience ascribing to, resisting and challenging hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The findings revealed that men predominantly drew on hegemonic norms to construct their masculinities, emphasizing the importance of occupying a position of power and control, especially when interacting with other heterosexual men and potential dating and sexual partners. Men at times also presented contrary and competing subject positions, simultaneously accepting and rejecting certain practices of dominant masculinity in their daily lives, specifically in relation to female figures (such as mothers and friends) and homosexual men. It was evident that the process of negotiating these multiple versions of masculinity was not easy. At times, men indicated struggling to negotiate their stutter with dominant masculine ideals, which led to reduced self-esteem and self-confidence and negative emotions and feelings of shame, weakness, emasculation, and inadequacy. In instances where participants resisted hegemonic ideals, they formulated affirmative masculinities in line with, and accepting of, their impairment. Implications for future masculinities research in the context of disability are discussed. Public Significance StatementResearch regarding disabled masculinities in the context of specific impairments is lacking. The study aims to examine how men who stutter construct their masculinities. The results demonstrated that men either ascribed to or rejected dominant masculine ideals, or formulated affirmative masculinities in line with their speech impairment. Future research is encouraged to move toward a more impairment-specific analysis and use discursive and applied psychological perspectives to gain new and critical insights into the complexities associated with disabled masculinities.

No abstract

This article aimed to build on the work of St. Pierre, exploring the liminal nature of people who stutter. Method: Drawing on my personal experiences of stuttering as a coloured South African man, I illuminated the liminal nature of stuttering.Results: This analytic autoethnography demonstrates how the interpretation of stuttering as the outcome of moral failure leads to the discrimination and oppression of people who stutter by able-bodied individuals as well as individuals who stutter. Conclusion:As long as stuttering is interpreted as the outcome of moral failure, the stigma and oppression, as well as the disablism experience by people who stutter, will continue to be concealed and left unaddressed.

Peer education has long been seen as a key health promotion strategy and an important tool in preventing HIV infection. In South African schools, it is currently one of the strategies employed to do so. Based on both a recent research study of peer education across 35 schools and drawing on multiple previous studies in South Africa, this paper examines the key elements of peer education that contribute to its effectiveness and asks how this aligns with current educational and health policies. From this research, it summarises and proposes shared goals and aims, minimum standards of implementation and reflects on the necessary infrastructure required for peer education to be effective. In light of these findings, it offers policy recommendations regarding who should be doing peer education and the status peer education should have in a school's formal programme.