Where have all the fathers gone? Media(ted) representations of fatherhood.
- Authors: Prinsloo, Jeanne
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Book review
- Identifier: vital:530 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008483
- Description: [From the introduction]: "It is in the mundane world that media operate most significantly. They filter and frame everyday realities, through their singular and multiple representations, providing touchstones, references, for the conduct of everyday life, for the production and maintenance of common-sense (Silverstone 1999, p.6). While it is broadly accepted that the media do not reflect society, they do provide us with a repertoire of roles and images which we encounter and with which we engage." As the opening quote suggests, the media play a vital role in the circulation and mediation of ideas, attitudes and actions and their significance is commented on frequently. It is noteworthy that such commentary in South Africa identifies that men are infrequently depicted in parental roles. This is in comparison to the other roles men inhabit and in contrast to the role of women as mother. It is also suggested that the macho masculine identities that the media offer serve as proxy father roles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Late glacial and holocene palaeoclimatology of the Drakensberg of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Lewis, Colin A
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6692 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006727
- Description: Eight climatic events during the Holocene are evidenced in the East Cape Drakensberg by fluvial, archaeological and palynological deposits. Flood plain deposition under relatively moist conditions occurred in the Early Holocene, before ca. 7000 BP. Semi-arid conditions with limited fluvial activity dominated the Mid Holocene until ca. 3200 BP. Alternating flood plain erosion and deposition occurred in the Late Holocene. Four climatic events, for which there is palynological and limited archaeological evidence, have been identified in the Late Glacial.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Learning science through two languages in South Africa
- Authors: Probyn, Margie J
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:7015 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007208
- Description: [From the introduction]: South Africa is a multilingual country with eleven national languages - nine indigenous languages and the two former colonial languages of English and Afrikaans1 - recognised as official languages in the Constitution of 1996 (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996). Despite these provisions, since the democratic elections of 1994 English has expanded its position as the language of access and power with the relative influence of Afrikaans shrinking, and African languages effectively confined to functions of ‘home and hearth’. McLean and McCormick (1996: 329 in Mazrui 2002: 269) suggest that the constitutional recognition of 11 official languages in South Africa is largely 'intended and perceived as a symbolic statement and that for instrumental purposes, English remains the dominant language in South Africa'.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Refining lecturers’ assessment practices through formal professional development at Rhodes University, Grahamstown
- Authors: Sayigh, Elizabeth
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6080 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008584
- Description: In recent years, the so-called Accreditation and Registration of Assessors has given rise to much debate in the Higher Education sector. The idea that anyone assessing student learning should be required to train in order to gain a formal qualification and register as an assessor originated with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and was soon challenged within the higher education community. The Study Team appointed to investigate the implementation of the NQF (National Qualifications Framework) in 2001 recommended that registration of assessors should not be required of individuals teaching in the higher education sector if employed by an accredited institution and this recommendation was later accepted by the Department of Education and the Department of Labour in their joint consultative document entitled ‘An Interdependent National Qualifications Framework System’ (Department of Education, Department of Labour 2003). The waiving of the requirement to register assessors has been welcomed within the public higher education sector. But despite this, the need to train and qualify assessors of students’ learning remains important due to the emphasis placed on assessment by the HEQC (Higher Education Quality Committee) in its ‘Criteria for Institutional Audits’ (2004). The central issue has become how higher education institutions are to successfully train lecturers as assessors in higher education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Can formal language planning link to grassroots cultural initiatives?: an informal investigation
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7041 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007381
- Description: Formal language planning is inevitably a top-down, highly technical process. Success for such planning would seem to depend on engaging productively with existing or readily developed social motivation within the society. This article reports on an informal investigation into how ordinary language practitioners and cultural workers in South Africa view the possibilities of contributing to the country’s emerging language dispensation, what they regard as their most useful possible contributions, and what they expect from the language planners and ‘government’ in support of South Africa’s Language Policy and Plan.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
Use of indigenous and indigenised medicines to enhance personal well-being: a South African case study
- Authors: Cocks, Michelle L , Moller, Valerie
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7106 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010679
- Description: An estimated 27 million South Africans use indigenous medicines (Mander, 1997, Medicinal plant marketing and strategies for sustaining the plant supply in the Bushbuckridge area and Mpumalanga Province. Institute for Natural Resources, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa). Although herbal remedies are freely available in amayeza stores, or Xhosa chemists, for self-medication, little is known about the motivations of consumers. According to African belief systems, good health is holistic and extends to the person's social environment. The paper makes a distinction between traditional medicines which are used to enhance personal well-being generally and for cultural purposes, on the one hand, and medicines used to treat physical conditions only, on the other. Drawing on an eight-month study of Xhosa chemists in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, in 1996, the paper identifies 90 medicines in stock which are used to enhance personal well-being. Just under one-third of all purchases were of medicines to enhance well-being. Remedies particularly popular included medicines believed to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck. The protection of infants with medicines which repel evil spirits is a common practice. Consumer behaviours indicate that the range of medicines available is increased by indigenisation of manufactured traditional medicines and cross-cultural borrowing. Case studies confirm that self- and infant medication with indigenous remedies augmented by indigenised medicines plays an important role in primary health care by allaying the fears and anxieties of everyday life within the Xhosa belief system, thereby promoting personal well-being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
Mentoring and prospects for teacher development - a South African perspective
- Authors: Probyn, Margie J , Van der Mescht, Hennie
- Date: 2001
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6090 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009744
- Description: School-based mentoring has developed in response to a number of factors pertaining to the pre-service education of student teachers and the in-service professional development of experienced teachers. Traditionally teacher education has consisted of university-based theory with school-based practice, based on an understanding of professional learning as ‘theory into practice’. One of the problems with this model is that theory may come to seem too remote from practice, and that practice appears untheorised by remaining implicit and unproblematised. The one-year teachers’ diploma course offered by the Rhodes University Education Department incorporates a ten-week teaching practice slot. This protracted period has been useful in allowing frequent and consistent contact between university tutors and student teachers, and between mentor teachers and student teachers. Where the system has not been strong is in enabling meaningful collaboration among all three parties. A pilot school-based mentoring programme was thus implemented in 1999, involving English First and Second Language student teachers, the two university tutors and seven mentor teachers. Ongoing evaluative research revealed that the programme was welcomed by all, and that the student teachers in particular gained much in the way of learning to be critically reflexive in a non-threatening environment. However, the research also uncovered areas that need to be developed. Student teachers, for example, need guidance in terms of learning how to talk about teaching; mentor teachers need to develop the confidence and expertise required to open up their practice in a critically constructive context. On the strength of the programme’s success, the Education Department has extended school-based mentoring to all HDE students, and is exploring ways of setting up courses through which other educators (such as EDOs) may receive training in pre- and in-service teacher mentoring.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
Petrology of the alkaline core of the Messum igneous complex, Namibia: evidence for the progressively decreasing effect of crustal contamination
- Authors: Harris, Chris , Marsh, Julian S , Milner, Simon C
- Date: 1999
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149746 , vital:38880 , https://doi.org/10.1093/petroj/40.9.1377
- Description: The Messum complex of NW Namibia, a part of the Paraná–Etendeka volcanic province, consists of a dominantly felsic central core, surrounded by older gabbros. The igneous rocks of the core can be divided, in order of decreasing age, into (1) a sub-alkaline suite, (2) an outer quartz syenite suite, and (3) an inner silica-undersaturated suite dominated by nepheline syenite. Compositional differences within the quartz syenite suite can be explained by fractional crystallization, but Sr- and O-isotope data indicate that these rocks contain a significant crustal component.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1999
Eva's men : gender and power in the establishment of the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–74
- Authors: Wells, Julia C
- Date: 1998
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6148 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006811 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021853798007300
- Description: This article offers a fresh interpretation of the life of Krotoa/Eva, the famous Khoena interpreter of Jan Van Riebeeck, whose gender gave her a unique position in relation to both Dutch and Khoena society. It appears that her own people sent her to work for the Dutch as a young girl, both to serve as a token of goodwill, to gain prestige as the protegee of the household of a powerful leader and to become familiar with Dutch ways. The Dutch received her comfortably as a servant, child minder and companion for Van Riebeeck's young nieces. When Eva learned Dutch expertly, she quickly became their most trusted interpreter. The evidence also hints at an especially close and sensitive, possibly sexual, relationship between her and Van Riebeeck. When military conflicts left Eva identified as a Dutch collaborator, she contacted her sister's husband, chief Oedasoa. Her direct mediation enabled the Dutch to open up a profitable new trading enterprise with Oedasoa, who in turn used Eva as his personal agent within the Dutch community. Her unique position attracted the attention of a bright young employee of the Company, Pieter Van Meerhoff, who became her lover soon after his arrival at the Cape in 1659. Pieter became actively involved in northern expeditions of exploration and prided himself on his sensitivity and capacity to get on well with various Khoena chiefs. Eva continued as an interpreter, intermediary with Oedasoa and the couple had two children together. Eva and Pieter married only after Van Riebeeck left the Cape. Their decision to conform to the norms of Dutch society disappointed Oedasoa who had offered them enough livestock to establish an independent lifestyle but brought both much higher levels of respect from the Dutch, including significant promotions for Pieter. When Pieter was killed in 1666, heading up a trading mission to Mauritius, Eva's life sharply deteriorated. She died in 1674, accused of having become a drunken pest and prostitute. Eva's story exemplifies how an African woman in an early colonial encounter could manipulate a variety of gender roles. Seen as a safe intermediary by both Africans and Europeans, she built herself a unique career and formed a durable liaison with a spirited young man. However, as the nature of contact between the races deteriorated, her role as intermediary diminished in importance. Ultimately, without Pieter, she could not sustain her pivotal place in Dutch society, dying a miserable death. Her life reflects the rapidly changing nature of early colonial contacts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1998
Research report
- Authors: NALEDI
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: NALEDI
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151396 , vital:39063
- Description: The intention of this paper is to highlight debates and issues regarding the use of guota systems in strengthening women’s leadership in the labour movement. The paper is aimed at broadening the debate from mere acceptance or rejection of the guota. Debates on the use of guotas tend to be heated and controversial and can lose sight of the central objective, which is the development of strategies for women’s empowerment. A large proportion of trade unions internationally have adopted forms of the quota system as a strong measure to deal with the ongoing under-representation of women in leadership. The quota system has also been introduced effectively in a number of parliaments all over the world, including South Africa. The countries with the highest representation of women in parliament have all had to use quotas to achieve this. The paper draws from a review of some of the international literature, as well as interviews undertaken with trade unionists and parliamentarians (see Appendix A for a list of interviewees). This paper will also highlight some examples where quota systems have been adopted, including three COSATU affiliates, namely CWIU, NEHAWU and SAMWU.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
Rhodes University Graduation Ceremony 1996
- Authors: Rhodes University
- Date: 1996
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:8130 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006774
- Description: Rhodes University 1996 Graduation Ceremony 5 Jagersfontein Lane, Oranjezicht, Cape Town, Wednesday, 27 March at 12.00 p.m. , Rhodes University 1996 Graduation Ceremonies [at] 1820 Settlers National Monument Friday, 12 April at 10:30 a.m.; 08:15 p.m. [and] Saturday, 13 April at 10:30 a.m. , Rhodes University 1996 Graduation Ceremony Quigney Baptist Church Saturday, 11 May at 11:00 a.m. , Inauguration Ceremony Dr David Randle Woods Principal and Vice-Chancellor, 1820 Settlers National Monument Friday, 30 August 1996 at 6:30 p.m.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
SADWU: Points to consider about the Labour relations bill
- Authors: South African Domestic Workers Union (SADWU)
- Date: Aug 1995
- Subjects: SADWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/114842 , vital:34041
- Description: Contrary to existing law, the LRB covers all workers, which means that domestic workers will in future be covered by the LRA. This will definitely be an improvement on the existing situation, as it extends the rights of SADWU workers. On investigating what this would actually mean to the union, some problematic factors come to light: The LRB deals with collective bargaining rights, which means it excludes all unorganised workers, and a large number of domestic workers are unorganised. They will therefore not be protected by the LRA unless they join the union. Although the LRB covers all workers, home workers (domestics) may be classified as independent contractors and therefore be excluded from the act. The bill has been left deliberately flexible, and it may be left up to the labour court to decide on this. Independent contractors are excluded from the bill, so if your work situation can legally be defined as falling under this definition, ie. if contract out your labour, you will be excluded from the bill. Many SADWU members are employed in what would be regarded as small business. The LRB proposes greater flexibility for small businesses, which could mean exemption from some of the regulations and/or collective agreements. This will not be to the advantage of the workers in these small businesses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: Aug 1995
Two articles focusing on participatory approaches
- Authors: Biggs, Stephen D
- Date: 1995
- Subjects: Agricultural innovations , Rural development -- Evaluation , Agricultural extension work -- Research , Agriculture -- Technology transfer -- Evaluation , Agricultural extension work -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/75076 , vital:30371 , 10250468
- Description: In recent years there has been a growing literature that advocates various forms of participatory development. This is illustrated by the promotion of approaches/tools such as participatory rural appraisal (PRA), participatory technology development (PTD), and participatory process projects 1 These "new" approaches are fast taking on the form of a new generalised orthodoxy for solving development problems. It would seem from the perspective of some of the promoters of this orthodoxy that the problem of development is no longer one of not having the right approaches and methods, but one of getting recalcitrant policy makers, bureaucrats, academics to appreciate and adopt these new methods and techniques. My concerns with this new advocacy are that: i It does not relate to experience; ii It does not address issues of power structure and control over information and other resources in multiple and complex arenas of science and technology (S&T); iii By placing major emphasis on management approaches and tools, the new orthodoxy is cutting itself off from a critical reflective understanding of the deeper determinants of technical and social change. Unfortunately, I suspect that if this new orthodoxy does not develop a more critical reflective view of itself then, like previous dominant orthodoxies, it will soon have to develop a range of "escape hatches" to explain why these participatory approaches are not giving the results that their advocates promise. , AVOCADO series; v 06/95
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1995
The role of African languages in a post-apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Mtuze, P T
- Date: 1990-08-09
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/54302 , vital:26452 , ISBN 0-86810-209-1
- Description: [From introduction] What role are the African languages destined to play in a post-apartheid South Africa? Before trying to answer this crucial question, I make bold to say that I believe that there will be a new democratic non-racial post- apartheid South Africa, despite the unsettling comment by Manzo and McGowan (1990:20) that "there is no guarantee that the outcome of the current negotiations will be a 'post-apartheid South Africa"'.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1990-08-09
The central beliefs of the Xhosa cattle-killing
- Authors: Peires, Jeffrey B
- Date: 1987
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6152 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006832 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700029418
- Description: The Xhosa cattle-killing movement of 1856–7 cannot be explained as a superstitious ‘pagan reaction’ to the intrusion of colonial rule and Christian civilization. It owes its peculiar form to the lungsickness epidemic of 1854, which carried off over 100,000 Xhosa cattle. The Xhosa theory of disease indicated that the sick cattle had been contaminated by the witchcraft practices of the people, and that these tainted cattle would have to be slaughtered lest they infect the pure new cattle which were about to rise. The idea of the resurrection of the dead was partly due to the Xhosa belief that the dead do not really die or depart from the world of the living, and partly to the Xhosa myth of creation, which held that all life originated in a certain cavern in the ground which might yet again pour forth its blessings on the earth. Christian doctrines, transmitted through the prophets Nxele and Mhlakaza, supplemented and elaborated these indigenous Xhosa beliefs. The Xhosa and the Christian elements united together in the person of the expected redeemer Sifuba-sibanzi (the broad-chested one). The central beliefs of the Xhosa cattle-killing were neither irrational nor atavistic. Ironically, it was probably because they were so rational and so appropriate that they ultimately proved to be so deadly.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1987
Rhodes University Graduation Ceremony 1981
- Authors: Rhodes University
- Date: 1981
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:8118 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004897
- Description: Rhodes University Graduation Ceremony on Friday, 10 April 1981 at 8 p.m. [and] on Saturday, 11 April 1981 at 10 a.m. in the 1820 Settlers National Monument.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1981
The dangers of Asbestos
- Date: June 1981
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139391 , vital:37733
- Description: This is a health education booklet for organised workers. It is about asbestos - one of the most dangerous dusts that workers can be exposed to. The aim of the booklet is to provide asbestos workers with the information they need in the struggle for better working conditions. The booklet is divided into three parts. The first part describes the problem of asbestos - who works with asbestos and how it can affect their health. The second part describes how workers can find out how bad the asbestos problem is in their workplace. This is done either by checking the air in the workplace or by having themselves properly examined by doctors. In the final section, ways of solving the problem are described. Workers cannot be sure that they are. safe until they fully understand the problems facing them. This booklet aims to provide the information that workers need.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: June 1981
World views, joking and liberated women - some reflections on the application of kinship theory
- Authors: Whisson, Michael G
- Date: 1979
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:6110 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008104
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1979
Farm labour in the Eastern Cape, 1950-1973:
- Authors: Antrobus, Geoffrey G
- Date: 1976
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142850 , vital:38123 , http://opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/465/1976_antrobus_sflcp20.pdf?sequence=1
- Description: The purpose of this paper is to, survey the farm labour conditions in the Eastern Cape over approximately two decades and to note some of the conditions of service and the attitudes of employers, and the changes which have occurred in employment and wages paid. The main source for the latter period, and in particular 1973, is a farm labour survey conducted in conjunction with E.A. Thomson in the Eastern Cape. The survey relied entirely on the willingness of members of farm study groups and Farmers' Associations as well as interested individuals for its completion. Of the approximately 1020 pre-coded questionnaires which were posted to farmers throughout the Eastern Cape in June 1973, 303 were returned of which 299 were suitable for analysis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1976