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The extensive empirical research inspired by Piaget and Vygotsky's theories of make-believe play has been criticised for restricting data to Western, urban, middle-class children. We seek to redress this bias by researching the traditional black South African Pedi children's game Masekitlana. Our data relies on embodied memories enacted by Mapelo (one of the authors), and interviews with two other informants. The analytical framework draws upon 'emergent methods' in ethnography such as performance ethnography, auto-ethnography and memory elicitation through 'bodynotes' within a Vygotskyian orientation to play. The findings show that Masekitlana shares features common to all pretend play, but also exhibits others unique to it including: i) extended monologue, ii) metacommunicative frames for realistic thinking, and iii) a complex relation between social and solitary play. These findings support Vygotsky. However, 'the long childhood' of Masekitlana suggests that the stages theory of Piaget, as well as Vygotskyian ideas that have come down to us via Cole and Scribner and Valsiner, require revision in the light of Bruner's two modes of cognition and Veresov's reinterpretation of the theatre movement within which Vygotsky's central ideas are embedded.

An association between attachment and academic performance appears to be consistently found in children; however, reports on such an association in adolescents are contradictory. This study aimed to determine whether the attachment dimensions of anxiety or avoidance significantly correlate with a student's academic performance at university. Moreover, since individual differences in attachment index distinct self-regulatory capacities, this study aimed to determine whether any correlation exists between a student's attachment dimensions and measures of self-regulated learning. Attachment dimensions were determined by the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire, while self-regulated learning was determined by the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, in a sample of university students (n = 185). Neither attachment dimensions correlated significantly with measures of academic performance. However, attachment dimensions did significantly correlate with measures of self-regulated learning in this study.

Children's learning of early number bonds is a significant issue in South African schools because evidence shows that flexible and efficient (fluent and reasoned) knowledge of number bonds to 20 correlates with success at the end of primary schooling, yet the evidence is that many South African students are over-reliant on inefficient counting methods. This paper focuses on why and how treating early number bonds as scientific concepts may be the key to raising learners' attainment in these. The paper argues that teacher mediation is crucial and that mediation for learning scientific concepts has to be meaningful, relational and transcendent. This theoretical position is illustrated with examples from a dynamic assessment interview with a Grade 2 learner carried out as part of the Wits Maths Connect -- Primary project. It concludes by suggesting the implications for teacher education and professional development.

Contemporary education theory (and official South African policy) underwrites learner-centredness. I analyse learner-centredness as a possible piece of the puzzle about why it is proving so difficult to improve academic achievement. Learner-centred ideas are grounded in the belief that cognitive abilities develop spontaneously in accordance with a natural developmental trajectory and optimal education is education that is in harmony therewith. The origin of learner-centredness is Rousseau's "education naturelle." I set out Rousseau's ideas and then critically analyse their manifestation in contemporary education.

Many South African children struggle in acquiring literacy and reading skills. It seems as if caregivers may be missing an important aspect in guiding children's emergent reading development. The question is whether there are underlying concepts needed for emergent literacy and the acquisition of reading skills. The nature of the reading process and prerequisite skills were determined through a critical review of the literature and the deconstruction of the reading process. The critical review was more than description and included analysis and conceptual innovation as we seek to identify significant items in the field of emergent reading and the reading process. This research method was supplemented by an exploratory mode of inquiry to develop new ideas with regard to reading acquisition. A number of underlying concepts were identified. Findings from this research may serve to support teachers in solving the problem of low reading achievement amongst school beginners.

Young women's sexuality is a contested terrain in multiple ways in contemporary South Africa. A growing body of work in the context of HIV and gender-based violence illustrates how young women find it challenging to negotiate safe and equitable sexual relationships with men, and are often the victims of coercive sex, unwanted early pregnancies and HIV. On the other hand, young women's sexuality is also stigmatised and responded to in punitive terms in school or community contexts, as is evident in research on teenage pregnancy and parenting in schools. Within both these bodies of work, women's own narratives are missing, as well as their agency and a positive discourse on female sexuality. Female desires are absent in heteronormative practices and ideologies, as pointed out by feminist researchers internationally. A body of work on young women who parent at school has shown that a key component of the moralistic response to women's sexuality hinges on the way in which childhood, adolescence and adulthood are popularly understood, together with dominant notions of masculinity and femininity within heteronormative and middle-class notions of family. Such discourses are also salient in the responses and understandings of sexuality education in Life Orientation, particularly the way in which young women are represented. This paper draws from qualitative research conducted with teachers, school authorities and young people on sexuality education in the Life Orientation programme at schools in the Western and Eastern Cape. Key findings reiterate disciplinary responses to young women's sexuality, often framed within "danger" and "damage" discourses that foreground the denial of young women's sexual desire and practices within a framework of protection, regulation and discipline in order to avoid promised punishments of being sexually active.

Autism is one of the most heritable neurodevelopmental conditions and has an early onset, with symptoms being required to be present in the first 3 years of life in order to meet criteria for the "core" disorder in the classification systems. As such, the focus on identifying a prodrome over the past 20 years has been on pre-clinical signs or indicators that will be present very early in life, certainly in infancy. A number of novel lines of investigation have been used to this end, including retrospective coding of home videos, prospective population screening and "high risk" sibling studies; as well as the investigation of pre- and peri-natal, brain developmental and other biological factors. While no single prodromal sign is expected to be present in all cases, a picture is emerging of indicative prodromal signs in infancy and initial studies are being undertaken to attempt to ameliorate early presentation and even "prevent" emergence of the full syndrome.

This study demonstrates that experience and development interact to influence the ''cross-race effect.'' In a multination study (n=245), Caucasian children and adults of European ancestry living in the United States, Norway, or South Africa, as well as biracial (Caucasian-African American) children and adults living in the United States, were tested for recognition of Asian, African, and Caucasian faces. Regardless of national or biracial background, 8- to 10-year-olds, 12- to 14-year-olds, and adults recognized own-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, and did so to a similar extent, whereas 5- to 7-year-olds recognized all face types equally well. This same developmental pattern emerged for biracial children and adults. Thus, early meaningful exposure did not substantially alter the developmental trajectory. During young childhood, developmental influences on face processing operate on a system sufficiently plastic to preclude, under certain conditions, the cross-race effect.

Describes the application of positive youth development principles to challenges faced by adolescent females in South Africa. A mainline, Euro-centric theory, Erikson's life stages (1963), is compared with the Circle of Courage model based on Native American Tribal wisdom. The differences and correlation in these approaches are explored through interviews with young adolescent women about their relationships. (Author)

Background: Hepatozoon fitzsimonsi (Dias, 1953) is a frequently found haemogregarine of southern African tortoises. At the time of this species' reassignment from the genus Haemogregarina to Hepatozoon, developmental stages such as sporocysts and sporozoites were observed in ticks associated with H. fitzsimonsi parasitised and non-parasitised tortoises. It was thus suggested that ticks may act as the potential vectors for this parasite. However, this earlier research was unable to confirm the identity of these sporogonic stages using molecular markers. In a separate study aimed at identifying tick species parasitising South African reptiles and molecularly screening these for the presence of Hepatozoon, that study identified H. fitzsimonsi in tortoise-associated ticks. Thus, the present study aimed to revisit the potential of ticks to act as vectors for H. fitzsimonsi in tortoises using a combined microscopy and molecular approach. Methods: Specimens of Kinixys natalensis, Kinixys spekii, Kinixys zombensis and Stigmochelys pardalis were collected from Bonamanzi and Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa. Upon capture, animals were examined for ticks, and these were collected along with blood and other tissues. Adult ticks were dissected and visceral impression slides were prepared along with thin blood and tissue smears on clean microscope slides. Smears and impression slides were stained with Giemsa, screened and micrographs of parasites were captured. Two primer sets were employed to target fragments of the 18S rRNA gene of parasites found in both tortoises and ticks and the resulting sequences were then compared with other known H. fitzsimonsi and haemogregarine sequences from the GenBank database. Results: Peripheral blood gamont and liver merogonic stages were observed in S. pardalis, while the sporogonic stages were observed in the haemocoel of Amblyomma ticks. Gamont and sporocyst stages compared morphologically with previous descriptions of H. fitzsimonsi, identifying them as this species. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the blood and tick sequences obtained in this study clustered in a monophyletic clade comprising known H. fitzsimonsi. Conclusions: The present study provides further support for ticks acting as the vectors of H. fitzsimonsi by molecularly identifying and linking observed developmental stages in tortoises (S. pardalis) with those in the invertebrate host (Amblyomma spp.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All active stages of a new species, Tanytydeus theroni sp. nov., are described from nests of the termite Trinervitermes trinervoides (Sjöstedt, 1911) (Isoptera: Termitidae) from South Africa. A key to Tanytydeus of the world is provided. The unusual morphological characters of the new species are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbialite pools are dynamic, heterogenous environments with extreme physico-chemical variability in terms of temporal temperature, oxygen and salinity fluctuations. Despite this habitat being hypothesised to be an ecological trap for larvae of marine estuary-dependent fishes, late-stage larvae and early juvenile White musselcracker (Sparodon durbanensis) ubiquitously occur in these pools. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between S. durbanensis density, developmental stage, total length and the physico-chemical environment using a multiple linear regression model analysis. Moreover, it aimed to further explore the potential nursery role of these extreme habitats. All larval and early juvenile stage S. durbanensis were collected with hand nets from pools at three representative microbialite sites on the warm temperate coast of South Africa from late summer to late autumn in 2021. A total of 63 pools were sampled with a total of 57 postflexion larvae and 162 early juvenile S. durbanensis specimens collected. Pool temperatures ranged from 16.6 to 37.3 °C with a mean of 24.5 °C, dissolved oxygen concentration ranged from 5.5 to 26.0 mg/L with a mean of 13.5 mg/L, and salinity ranged from 1.3 to 34.8 with a mean of 25.4. Temperature had a significant positive relationship with total length for early juvenile stages, while none of the other predictor variables showed evidence of a significant relationship with total length. Fish density showed a significant relationship with pool volume for both developmental stages where higher densities occurred in smaller pools that were also characterised by the most extreme physico-chemical variability. Late-stage larvae and early juveniles of this marine fish, that does not use estuaries as a nursery area, appears to complete the larval phase under extreme estuarine-like conditions in microbialite pools. Microbialite pools, as well as adjacent non-microbialite rocky shore pools appear to act as a micro-refuge, possibly improving growth rates and reducing the pelagic larval duration due to warmer water temperatures after which fish move into adjacent deeper, low shore pools and gullies. Due to the extreme conditions in microbialite pools, protection from predators during transition from larval to juvenile stages is also afforded. • Microbialite pools have extreme temperature, oxygen and salinity variability. • Postflexion stage Sparodon durbanensis recruit into high-shore microbialite pools from marine hatching areas. • Warm and hyperoxic pools support late-stage larval grow out of Sparodon durbanensis. • Estuarine-like conditions in microbialite pools are tolerated by postflexion stage larvae of Sparodon durbanensis. • Sparodon durbanensis is absent from estuaries during early life history stages in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]