Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Illegal Yet Developmentally Normative: A Descriptive Analysis Of Young, Urban Adolescents' Dating And Sexual Behaviour In Cape Town, South Africa, Aník Gevers, Cathy Mathews, Pam Cupp, Marcia Russell, Rachel Jewkes

Communication Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: In South Africa, it is illegal for adolescents under age 16 years to engage in any sexual behaviour whether kissing, petting, or penetrative sex, regardless of consent. This cross-sectional study investigated the extent to which young adolescents engage in various sexual behaviours and the associations between dating status and sexual behaviours.

METHOD: Grade 8 adolescents (N = 474, ages 12--15 years, mean = 14.14 years) recruited from Cape Town schools completed surveys providing information about their sociodemographic backgrounds, dating experience, sexual behaviour, and substance use.

RESULTS: Lower hierarchy sexual behaviours, such as kissing (71.4% of girls; 88.4% of boys), …

Seeking Care: Mindfulness, Reflexive Struggle, And Puffy Selves In Bullying, Keith Berry

Communication Faculty Publications

What does it mean to become ourselves, to experience who we and others understand us to be? What might the process look like for younger selves who are immersed in the looming problem of bullying, and what is at stake regarding how we respond to its complex storyline? How can we engage ethnographic research that studies ourselves and others in ways that are also more caring than harmful for all persons involved? As senseless bullying continues, I seek meaningful answers to questions of becoming and identities within these intricate relational spaces. Yet as I perform this seeking, the search becomes …