Suchergebnisse

The teaching and working world has been disrupted by developments known as the 4th Industrial Revolution. As we grappled with the Covid-19 epidemic the world saw massive disruptions in how and where we work, teach, learn and socialize. As moves to continue the social via virtual platforms increased as a result of Covid-19 restrictions we saw disruptions in everyday social meaning making. This article via reflections from personal observation and conversations with colleagues engages with the idea of voice recognition as an important social cue in virtual interactions. The article shows how taken for granted social markers of engagement can be rendered useless in context were the only connector to the people you are interacting with is their voice. The article challenges us to engage with the following questions: What impacts does the move to virtuality have on social engagements that allow us to humanize each other? What can we do to maintain the important social cues important for meaning making in context of teaching, counseling, consultation as we see many of these roles move to the virtual space?

South Africa celebrated twenty years of democracy in
2014 following more than 100 years of colonization and
institutionalized discrimination through Apartheid. A
'broken' family structure is one of the pathetic legacies left
by political instability in post-colonial and post war countries
globally. This phenomenon of broken families is evident in
South Africa following the period of discrimination against
Black people and the systematic migrant labor system that
was sponsored by and for the Apartheid government. The
migrant labor system separated fathers from their families
and men left their families in the rural communities to work
in the burgeoning mines and factories in urban areas. The
current democratic State has a responsibility to strengthen
broken families through policies and intervention informed
by research evidence. There is an emerging body of research
on Father Connections in post-war and post-colonial settings.
This special issue brings together eight articles on Father
Connections in South Africa. The articles present data from
diverse but interesting research; for example the piece by
Nduna M and Taulela M focuses on the experiences of
'discovering' biological fathers for youth who grew up with
absent and unknown fathers. The participants that the article
draws from are young women from a small town, in
Mpumalanga. Through narrative analysis, the article explores
how young people deal with finding out who their biological
fathers are. In the article by Selebano N and Khunou G, the
experiences of young fathers from Soweto are explored.
It is illustrated in this article that, there are strong ties
between young men's experiences and the community
values, history and culture where they experience
fatherhood. The article by Langa M interestingly looks at
narratives and meaning makings of young boys who grew up
without fathers. Langa looks at how young boys can adopt
alternative ideas of what it means to be a man in contexts
that would otherwise be assumed to automatically lead to an
embrace of hegemonic notions of masculinities. On a similar
note the article by Nduna M focuses on experiences of young
people who grow up without a father entering into
endeavours to find and use their father's surname. The
article looks at how the signifying paternal ancestry is
developed and maintained in contexts of father absence,
through pursuing an absent father's surname as the 'right
surname'.
The article by Lesch E and Ismail A focuses on the
significant question of the father daughter relationship and
examines constraining constructions of fatherhood for
daughters with a specific focus on the Cape Winelands
community in South Africa. In Chauke P and Khunou G's
contribution on the media's influence on societal notions of
fatherhood in relation to the maintenance system is
examined. The article looks at how cases of maintenance are
dealt with in print media. Franklin A & Makiwane M's
article provides a significant examination of male attitudes of
family and children. This article begins to speak to the
transformations of expectations of men in families. This
transformation is addressed through a look at racially
disaggregated quantitative data. Mthombeni A reviews a
book, Good Morning Mr. Mandela by Zelda Le Grange
where she examines some of the challenges of fatherhood in
South Africa's past and present.

The media influence society's understanding of gender and other social phenomena including how we view
fatherhood. Fatherhood is rarely presented positively in both visual and print media. Through an analysis of newspaper
articles from The Sowetan, City Press, The Daily Sun and The Pretoria News, this article shows how shaming is used to
represent fatherhood and child support in the South African print media. These representations, the article argues are
limiting and provide fewer positives for fathers and fail to account for socio-economic challenges experienced in relation
to fatherhood. In conclusion, the article illustrates that the media could play an important role in presenting a balanced
sense of fatherhood, where affirmation of positive fatherhood is used as a more effective way of representing fatherhood
in the media.

While young mothers have enjoyed the interests of researchers and policy makers, young fathers' experiences
have only been examined recently. Through a thematic content analysis of interviews with six black young fathers from
White City, Jabavu in Soweto, this article argues that early fatherhood should be understood through an examination of
how it is lived in the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of particular communities. The data from this study
indicate that there are strong ties between the young men's experiences and the overall community values, history and
culture where they experience fatherhood. The article concludes that for appropriate policies and strategies to be
implemented where young fathers are concerned, more context specific research should be conducted.

Most recently, the role of grandmothers has been highlighted as significant in the lives of their grandchildren in South Africa. Studies have previously highlighted the contribution the Old Age Grant makes in contexts of poverty, orphanhood and the migrant labour system. Similarly, studies on the Child Support Grant (CSG) have illustrated its contribution to the well-being of children and families in general. However, missing in these examinations has been an understanding of how the CSG is contested in contexts of parental absence due to internal labour migration. Through a thematic content analysis of qualitative interviews with members of migrants' families, this article illustrates that in the context of internal labour migration, family responsibilities shift in ways that make unemployed grandmothers who do not receive the Old Age Grant vulnerable. This vulnerability is manifested through a tension in familial relationships. This tension stem from the contestation of the CSG by young labour-migrant mothers, the guardian (grandmother), and the beneficiaries of the CSG. The article concludes that these tensions result from continuing socio-economic struggles experienced by poor households.