Violence, resilience and solidarity : the right to education for child migrants in South Africa
- Hlatshwayo, Mondli., Vally, Salim
- Authors: Hlatshwayo, Mondli. , Vally, Salim
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Centre for Education Rights and Transformation , School psychology - Cross-cultural studies , School psychology , Immigrants
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5505 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13671
- Description: This article examines the psychology of migrant learners’ resilience, their right to education, and how migrant organizations and South African civil society are supporting and reinforcing the agency of migrant learners and their parents. It is based on a year-long study conducted by researchers at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), funded by the Foundation for Human Rights. Testimonies, participatory workshops, surveys, interviews, and focus groups with learners, parents, educators, officials, and civil society activists in three South African provinces were studied––Gauteng, Limpopo, and the Western Cape––spanning rural, urban, and township areas. The article is framed by the traumatic experiences of migrant learners before entering South Africa, during their stay, and often when they are deported. Topics covered in the testimonies include children’s rights to, and in education, they also traverse gender issues, the travails of unaccompanied minors, and obstacles preventing migrants’ participation in schooling and society.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Hlatshwayo, Mondli. , Vally, Salim
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Centre for Education Rights and Transformation , School psychology - Cross-cultural studies , School psychology , Immigrants
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5505 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13671
- Description: This article examines the psychology of migrant learners’ resilience, their right to education, and how migrant organizations and South African civil society are supporting and reinforcing the agency of migrant learners and their parents. It is based on a year-long study conducted by researchers at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), funded by the Foundation for Human Rights. Testimonies, participatory workshops, surveys, interviews, and focus groups with learners, parents, educators, officials, and civil society activists in three South African provinces were studied––Gauteng, Limpopo, and the Western Cape––spanning rural, urban, and township areas. The article is framed by the traumatic experiences of migrant learners before entering South Africa, during their stay, and often when they are deported. Topics covered in the testimonies include children’s rights to, and in education, they also traverse gender issues, the travails of unaccompanied minors, and obstacles preventing migrants’ participation in schooling and society.
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Masculinity, respectability and divergence among migrant informal traders in Johannesburg
- Authors: Igbanoi, Osikhena Leo
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Immigrants , Masculinity , Interpersonal relations
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/296712 , uj:32331
- Description: Abstract: Although migrant masculinities exhibit diverse forms of solidarities in host countries, existing masculinity-migration studies have not duly accounted for how their exercise of agency associated with the construction of masculine respectability results in migrant-migrant contestations among them. This study fills in this gap by interrogating the masculine relationships among African men in Johannesburg. Employing qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, data was collected from 20 young, male migrants from four African countries - Ghana, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia – across 4 informal business sites in Johannesburg over a period of 6 months. This information was subsequently thematically analysed using Creswell’s (2009) six-step data analysis approach. Findings reveal that in their articulations of masculine respectability, the migrant men create and co-create each other in the social fields that they inhabit through gendered agency. Sometimes such enactments of masculinity are material they construct and reconstruct themselves materially, for instance, as providers and heads of households. At other times, the men turn to other social means to construct self-esteem, including employing past and present cultural and symbolic social resources like educational attainment, age, legal status in South Africa, etc. In the relational contexts that the bodies of the men interact, they mobilise individual and collective agencies to forge useful relationships and solidarities. Yet, these are mostly instrumental in nature thus tend to be frequently disrupted by individual and group senses of respectability that result in tensions among them. The manifest outcomes include verbal and physical contestations and co-constructions, which sometimes are also violent in nature. These, then, lead the men to make calculated decisions to engage minimally with each other while maintaining strategic solidarities. The thesis adds a significant voice to studies on migrant masculinities by interrogating the complex realities and relationships that migrant men are embedded in within host contexts. Ultimately, it presents a critical perspective of masculinitymigration literature that is largely fixated on xenophobia discourses, which tend to locate migrant men as victims during the migratory process. , D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)
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- Authors: Igbanoi, Osikhena Leo
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Immigrants , Masculinity , Interpersonal relations
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/296712 , uj:32331
- Description: Abstract: Although migrant masculinities exhibit diverse forms of solidarities in host countries, existing masculinity-migration studies have not duly accounted for how their exercise of agency associated with the construction of masculine respectability results in migrant-migrant contestations among them. This study fills in this gap by interrogating the masculine relationships among African men in Johannesburg. Employing qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, data was collected from 20 young, male migrants from four African countries - Ghana, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia – across 4 informal business sites in Johannesburg over a period of 6 months. This information was subsequently thematically analysed using Creswell’s (2009) six-step data analysis approach. Findings reveal that in their articulations of masculine respectability, the migrant men create and co-create each other in the social fields that they inhabit through gendered agency. Sometimes such enactments of masculinity are material they construct and reconstruct themselves materially, for instance, as providers and heads of households. At other times, the men turn to other social means to construct self-esteem, including employing past and present cultural and symbolic social resources like educational attainment, age, legal status in South Africa, etc. In the relational contexts that the bodies of the men interact, they mobilise individual and collective agencies to forge useful relationships and solidarities. Yet, these are mostly instrumental in nature thus tend to be frequently disrupted by individual and group senses of respectability that result in tensions among them. The manifest outcomes include verbal and physical contestations and co-constructions, which sometimes are also violent in nature. These, then, lead the men to make calculated decisions to engage minimally with each other while maintaining strategic solidarities. The thesis adds a significant voice to studies on migrant masculinities by interrogating the complex realities and relationships that migrant men are embedded in within host contexts. Ultimately, it presents a critical perspective of masculinitymigration literature that is largely fixated on xenophobia discourses, which tend to locate migrant men as victims during the migratory process. , D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)
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The experiences of caregivers in accessing education for their cross-border migrant children with disabilities
- Authors: Zembe, Nyaradzo Nellie
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Caregivers , Immigrants , Children of immigrants , Children with disabilities - Education , Special education
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/227005 , uj:22964
- Description: M.A. (Development Studies) , Abstract: Despite South Africa‟s commitment to strive for universal primary education, cross-border migrant children and children with disabilities continue to be marginalised from access to schooling. This is even more apparent in the case of cross-border migrant children with disabilities, who face multiple overlapping vulnerabilities. Caregivers of cross-border migrant children with disabilities often seek the expertise of Non-Governmental Organisations in attempting to enrol their children in schools when they have exhausted all other options. This study sought to uncover the experiences of these caregivers throughout the process of accessing schools for their children before seeking support from local Non-Governmental Organisations, particularly Afrika Tikkun. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 caregivers and the findings, although non-generalisable, indicate that these caregivers, in addition to xenophobic and prejudiced treatment, were excluded from receiving health care, security and protection, and most importantly for this study, access to schools. Their children were often placed on long waiting lists, or turned away for not having the right documents, despite the universal right to education. These unemployed single mothers also had a weak support structure and were unable to financially support their families. Whilst these experiences did not necessarily vanish when they joined the Non-Governmental Organisations, caregivers report having felt better equipped to deal with their challenges. They had more information regarding their rights as well as support from other caregivers, which enabled them to feel less distraught about their predicaments. This study was important in highlighting the experiences of this generally hidden population that occupies an under-researched field of study.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Zembe, Nyaradzo Nellie
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Caregivers , Immigrants , Children of immigrants , Children with disabilities - Education , Special education
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/227005 , uj:22964
- Description: M.A. (Development Studies) , Abstract: Despite South Africa‟s commitment to strive for universal primary education, cross-border migrant children and children with disabilities continue to be marginalised from access to schooling. This is even more apparent in the case of cross-border migrant children with disabilities, who face multiple overlapping vulnerabilities. Caregivers of cross-border migrant children with disabilities often seek the expertise of Non-Governmental Organisations in attempting to enrol their children in schools when they have exhausted all other options. This study sought to uncover the experiences of these caregivers throughout the process of accessing schools for their children before seeking support from local Non-Governmental Organisations, particularly Afrika Tikkun. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 caregivers and the findings, although non-generalisable, indicate that these caregivers, in addition to xenophobic and prejudiced treatment, were excluded from receiving health care, security and protection, and most importantly for this study, access to schools. Their children were often placed on long waiting lists, or turned away for not having the right documents, despite the universal right to education. These unemployed single mothers also had a weak support structure and were unable to financially support their families. Whilst these experiences did not necessarily vanish when they joined the Non-Governmental Organisations, caregivers report having felt better equipped to deal with their challenges. They had more information regarding their rights as well as support from other caregivers, which enabled them to feel less distraught about their predicaments. This study was important in highlighting the experiences of this generally hidden population that occupies an under-researched field of study.
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