Navigating a Course for Enhanced Pedagogic Trends: A Survey on the use and Acceptability of ‘Translanguaging’ Techniques in a South African Context

The paper explores translanguaging patterns within a South African setting in general, and within the Xitsonga classrooms at M.L Nkuna High School in particular. A qualitative approach was employed, and a case study design was adopted. The purpose of the research was to track translanguaging patterns within Xitsonga lessons in order to improve the performance of learners who use Xitsonga as a home language. It sought to clarify the impact of translanguaging in the process of teaching and learning of Xitsonga Home Language at the school in question, to explore how the concept of translanguaging served to improve or hinder the teaching and learning of Xitsonga at the school, and whether or not, teachers are effectively using translanguaging within the School (GET) classrooms. This, however, was carried out with the learners’ linguistic background in mind. The study found that teachers are not familiar with translanguaging and they do not see translanguaging as a mechanism that can help in improving the performance of learners in Xitsonga. It was also discovered that translanguaging is not used effectively in classrooms despite the evidence that some learners are doing Xitsonga at school as home language, while at home a different language is spoken. Also, the occurrence of translanguaging patterns is poor. Therefore, translanguaging is not effectively used to enhance the teaching and learning of Xitsonga Home Language at M.L Nkuna High School.  &nbsp

Challenges and opportunities in coproduction: reflections on working with young people to develop an intervention to prevent violence in informal settlements in South Africa

This is the final version. Available on open access from BMJ Publishing Group via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: No data are available. Not applicable.Coproduction is widely recognised as essential to the development of effective and sustainable complex health interventions. Through involving potential end users in the design of interventions, coproduction provides a means of challenging power relations and ensuring the intervention being implemented accurately reflects lived experiences. Yet, how do we ensure that coproduction delivers on this promise? What methods or techniques can we use to challenge power relations and ensure interventions are both more effective and sustainable in the longer term? To answer these questions, we openly reflect on the coproduction process used as part of Siyaphambili Youth (‘Youth Moving Forward’), a 3-year project to create an intervention to address the social contextual factors that create syndemics of health risks for young people living in informal settlements in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. We identify four methods or techniques that may help improve the methodological practice of coproduction: (1) building trust through small group work with similar individuals, opportunities for distance from the research topic and mutual exchanges about lived experiences; (2) strengthening research capacity by involving end users in the interpretation of data and explaining research concepts in a way that is meaningful to them; (3) embracing conflicts that arise between researchers’ perspectives and those of people with lived experiences; and (4) challenging research epistemologies through creating spaces for constant reflection by the research team. These methods are not a magic chalice of codeveloping complex health interventions, but rather an invitation for a wider conversation that moves beyond a set of principles to interrogate what works in coproduction practice. In order to move the conversation forward, we suggest that coproduction needs to be seen as its own complex intervention, with research teams as potential beneficiaries.Medical Research Council (MRC

Impact of South Africa’s April 2022 floods on women and men’s lives and gender relations in low-income communities: A qualitative study

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordIn 2022, South Africa faced devastating flooding which resulted in the loss of at least 425 lives and widescale destruction of property. Using qualitative methods, we describe the gendered impact of the floods on homes and lives of women and men from very low-income housing areas. We conducted 16 in-depth interviews with women, and eight single-sex narrative group discussions and with 35 women and 15 men from flood-affected areas. The women were research participants in a project that commenced prior to the floods, and the men were recruited for this study. The floods were described by many as ‘heart-breaking’, as neighbouring homes collapsed, children were swept away, and people known to them lost their lives. However, other participants asserted that the floods ‘didn’t affect them much’, before describing considerable, impact on their houses, families, possessions, neighbourhoods, jobs, and other aspects of their lives. After the initial struggle to secure their homes, and rescue family and possessions from the floods, participants were faced with extensive interruption to water supply and electricity, which severely exacerbated stress, especially for women. We describe how the impact of the flooding unfolded and largely followed the contours of gender relations, rather than disrupting them. Most women did not describe violence against women (VAW) as escalating after the floods, but for those who did, the pathway followed the impact of the floods on men’s access to the central tenets of successful masculinity, notably the provider/protector role, and lashing out response. Participants also emphasised that their lives continued much as before once the immediate aftermath of floods was past, and in so doing demonstrated significant resilience, which is not described in existing models of disaster impact on VAW.South African Medical Research Counci

Viral variants that initiate and drive maturation of V1V2-directed HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies.

CAPRISA, 2015.Abstract available in pdf