Dissertation Research: Social Construction of Gender Idenity in South Africa

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This project, supported both by the Social, Behavioral and Economic Research and the International Divisions of NSF, involves the dissertation research of an anthropology student from Emory University. The student will investigate the relationships between indigenous Xhosa-speaking South African adolescents and their parents and other members of the adult generation. Focusing on households containing adolescent s aged 10-19, the student will interview how young peoples' and their parents' definitions of adolescence versus adulthood vary in light of changing religious, social and economic circumstances. The student will first survey about 100 households in two sites with different socio-economic characteristics in a large suburb of Cape Town, and go on to conduct structured interviews, individual case studies and intensive observation of adolescents in different social contexts. The focus will be on the cultural meanings of adolescence in relation to male and female intimate practices, contraceptive use and adolescent pregnancy. This research is important because it will advance our understanding of the cultural meanings behind behavior causing acquired immuno-deficiency disease and adolescent pregnancy. Improving our knowledge of the sources of adolescent behavior will be an important step towards designing programs to change that behavior and reduce the prevalence of disease and adolescent pregnancies.