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Knowledge production in South Africa remains framed by the legacies of apartheid. Developing emerging authors and local knowledges through co-authorship between supervisors and post graduate students is an important strategy aimed at challenging these legacies. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with students and supervisors to explore their experiences of co-authorship. Findings indicate that while insisting that co-authoring has value, several students also note their discomfort with elements of the process. While insisting students' work be disseminated, and expressing willingness to engage in the mentoring that this requires, supervisors also articulate discomfort with processes offering opportunities for personal career development. Given increasing emphasis on co-authorship we suggest the power inequalities expressed through the supervisor/student relationship be made more transparent. Knowledge production through co-authorship is best served by collaborations between authors who are more equally empowered and who are more critically aware of the challenges such collaborations are likely to present.

Heterosexual sexuality (heterosex) has been criticised for its central role in the reproduction of gender inequality and violence against women. This paper explores the way in which students draw on discourses of power and violence in their discussion of heterosexual relationships. The paper is based on a larger discourse analytic study of 17 focus groups and a free-association exercise carried out with psychology students at the University of the Western Cape. The paper highlights students' constructions of heterosexual relationships as bound up with power and violence. Significantly, resistance and challenge to such a status quo, particularly by women, are also evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 20 years have seen a proliferation of research, spurred by the imperatives of the HIV epidemic and reportedly high rates of gender-based violence, on heterosexual practices in the South African context. Research has focused on how poverty, age and gender within specific cultural contexts shape sexual agency and provide a context for unequal, coercive and violent practices for young women. This paper takes stock of what we currently 'know' about heterosex and critically reflects on the political and ideological effects of such research, specifically in the light of young women's agency. A primary concern is that efforts to address gender inequality and the normative gender practices that shape inequitable heterosexual practices may have functioned to reproduce the very discourses that underpin such inequalities. The paper 'troubles' the victim-agency binarism as it has been played out in South African research on heterosex, raising concerns about how the research may reproduce gendered, classed and raced othering practices and discourses and bolstered regulatory and disciplinary responses to young women's sexualities. The paper argues for critical, feminist self-reflexivity that should extend to re-thinking methodologies entrenched in frameworks of authority and surveillance.

South Africa has seen a rapid increase in scholarship and programmatic interventions focusing on gender and sexuality, and more recently on boys, men and masculinities. In this paper, we argue that a deterministic discourse on men's sexuality and masculinity in general is inherent in many current understandings of adolescent male sexuality, which tend to assume that young women are vulnerable and powerless and young men are sexually powerful and inevitably also the perpetrators of sexual violence. Framed within a feminist, social constructionist the oretical perspective, the current research looked at how the masculinity and sexuality of South African young men is constructed, challenged or maintained. Focus groups were conducted with young men between the ages of 15 and 20 years from five different schools in two regions of South Africa, the Western and Eastern Cape. Data were analysed using Gilligan's listening guide method. Findings suggest that participants in this study have internalised the notion of themselves as dangerous, but were also exploring other possible ways of being male and being sexual, demonstrating more complex experiences of manhood. We argue for the importance of documenting and highlighting the precariousness, vulnerability and uncertainty of young men in scholarly and programmatic work on masculinities.

Reproductive rights in South Africa continue to be undermined for young women who fall pregnant and become mothers while still at school. Before 1994, exclusionary practices were common and the majority of those who fell pregnant failed to resume their education. With the adoption of new policies in 2007, young pregnant women and mothers are supposed to be supported to complete school successfully. Notwithstanding these new policies, there are incongruities between policy implementation and young women's lived experience in school. This paper explores the experiences of pregnancy and parenting among a group of 15 young women who fell pregnant and became mothers while attending three high schools in Khayelitsha township, a working-class community in the Western Cape of South Africa. Qualitative, in-depth interviews, conducted between 2007 and 2008, highlighted two key areas of concern: continuing exclusionary practices on the part of schools, based on conservative interpretations of policy, and negative and moralistic responses from teachers and peers. Such practices resulted in secrecy and shame about being pregnant, affecting the young women's emotional and physical well-being and their decisions whether to remain in school during pregnancy and return after having the baby. Further attention is required to ensure appropriate implementation of policies aimed at supporting pregnant and parenting young women to complete their education successfully., (Copyright © 2013 Reproductive Health Matters. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Research capacity building engenders assets that allow communities (and, in this case, student fellows) to respond adequately to health issues and problems that are contextual, cultural and historical in nature. In this paper, we present a US-South African partnership that led to research training for 30 postgraduate students at two South African universities. We begin by exploring the nature of research capacity building in a partnership research project designed to promote HIV and AIDS-related stigma reduction. We examine methodological issues and their relevance to training of postgraduate students in South Africa. We conclude with recommendations for a successful model of partnership for building capacity of health researchers in Africa with the goal of developing research that informs policies and helps to bridge the health inequity gap globally.

South African law forbids excluding pregnant teenagers from school and permits young parents to continue with their schooling. However, the existence of progressive policy and law does not by itself ensure that pregnant teenagers and young parents remain in school or experience as little disruption to their studies as possible. Two of the factors influencing the experiences that pregnant girls and young parents have are the attitudes and practices of teachers. We explore how teachers in diverse South African secondary schools respond to young women's pregnancy and parenting. Teachers' responses are situated within a complex set of meanings invoking sexuality (and sexual censure), gender, class and race. We argue that many teachers view teenage pregnancy and parenting as social problems - a domain of sexual shame with negative effects and disruptive to the academic life of the school (including teachers and other learners). Teachers do not monolithically subscribe to such negativity and, in the context of changing policy and gender equality, there are glimmers of hope. Without much support, training or any formal school-based support, many teachers show care and concern for pregnant women and young parents, providing some hope for better experiences of schooling.

South Africa is in the midst of one of the world's most devastating HIV/AIDS epidemics and there is a well-documented association between violence against women and HIV transmission. Interventions that target men and integrate HIV prevention with gender-based violence prevention may demonstrate synergistic effects. A quasi-experimental field intervention trial was conducted with two communities randomly assigned to receive either: (a) a five session integrated intervention designed to simultaneously reduce gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV risk behaviors (N = 242) or (b) a single 3-hour alcohol and HIV risk reduction session (N = 233). Men were followed for 1-, 3-, and 6-months post intervention with 90% retention. Results indicated that the GBV/HIV intervention reduced negative attitudes toward women in the short term and reduced violence against women in the longer term. Men in the GBV/HIV intervention also increased their talking with sex partners about condoms and were more likely to have been tested for HIV at the follow-ups. There were few differences between conditions on any HIV transmission risk reduction behavioral outcomes. Further research is needed to examine the potential synergistic effects of alcohol use, gender violence, and HIV prevention interventions.

The Gender Attitudes-Power-Risk (GAPR) model of HIV risk behavior was tested using survey data collected from among 309 men who were attending STI services in a primary health care clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. Results showed that negative attitudes towards women were significantly positively associated with a high level of HIV risk behavior, and that endorsement of traditional male roles was negatively associated with HIV risk behavior. Endorsement of traditional male gender roles was also inversely related to relationship control but positively to a high degree of decision-making dominance in one's relationship. Sexual relationship power did not significantly mediate the relationships between gender attitudes and HIV risk behavior. A better understanding of gender roles and ideologies in combination with one's power in sexual relationships as they relate to HIV risk behavior among men could better inform future HIV prevention interventions.

The links between gender roles, gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS risk are complex and culturally specific. In this qualitative study we investigated how women and men in two black communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, constructed their gender identities and roles, how they understood gender-based violence, and what they believed about the links between gender relations and HIV risk. First we conducted 16 key informant interviews with members of relevant stakeholder organisations. Then we held eight focus group discussions with community members in single-sex groups. Key findings included the perception that although traditional gender roles were still very much in evidence, shifts in power between men and women were occurring. Also, gender-based violence was regarded as a major problem throughout communities, and was seen to be fuelled by unemployment, poverty and alcohol abuse. HIV/AIDS was regarded as particularly a problem of African communities, with strong themes of stigma, discrimination, and especially 'othering' evident. Developing effective HIV/AIDS interventions in these communities will require tackling the overlapping as well as divergent constructions of gender, gender violence and HIV which emerged in the study.

This study aimed to determine the immediate behavioural outcomes of the WHO syndromic case management model for STIs in the public health sector in South Africa, on the levels of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, and behavioural practices (KABPs) concerning STIs. An outcomes evaluation was conducted using KABP methodology. Exit interviews were conducted with 126 STI and non-STI patients at 24 primary health care (PHC) centres in four provinces. Both groups were found to have equally high levels of knowledge about STIs and their attitudes towards and beliefs about STIs were mostly practical and slightly negative, with only promiscuity both stereotyped and stigmatised. However, both groups were found to engage in risky sexual behavioural practices although they also indicated very strong intentions to use condoms in future. Overall, no significant differences were found between the two groups on any of the variables investigated. The implications of these findings for the control and prevention of both classic STIs and HIV/AIDS in South Africa are discussed.

Since the medical link between sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS was established, there has been an increased focus on the spread of STIs in South Africa. The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth picture of the dynamics involved in sexuality and the spread of STIs and HIV/AIDS. The authors present the findings of a focus group study, which was a part of a larger, national project addressing the broad question of health-care seeking behavior for STIs. A discourse analysis carried out on 10 focus groups reveals complex and rich narratives on the way in which STIs are constructed in South African communities. The dominant discourses focused on the continuing stigmatization of STIs, causal explanations, and prevention strategies. The analysis raises important recommendations for both educational interventions and health services toward the challenge of halting the spread of STIs and HIV/AIDS.

A prevalence study of attitudes and behaviours associated with anorexia nervosa and bulimia was carried out among female undergraduate students at the University of Cape Town. Findings were similar to those found in surveys overseas. More than one-tenth of respondents (11.8%) scored in the 'anorexic range' on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT); more than one-fifth (21.9%) are at present binge-eating, and 6.3% using self-induced vomiting as a means of weight control. Use of laxatives, diet pills, fasting, strict diets and exercise was common. The findings are discussed within the context of sociocultural pressures on women to conform to a slim ideal shape and size. Sensitive management of the problem is needed.