Browsing by Author "Paruk, Zubeda."
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Item Attitude towards women amongst a sample of South African Muslim males.(2007) Ahmed, Rizwana.; Paruk, Zubeda.The purpose of this study was to investigate age, education and level of religiosity as correlates of attitudes toward women amongst a sample of South African Muslim men. The study was conducted with 118 randomly selected South African Muslim males. A biographical questionnaire, the Islamic Attitude Toward Women Scale (Khalid, 2004) and the Religiosity Measures Questionnaire developed by Rohrbaugh & Jessor in 1975 (Hill & Hood, 1999) were used to collect data. The findings revealed that age was significantly related to attitudes towards women. Education and level of religiosity were found to have no significant relationship with attitude towards women.Item An evaluation of the social support network component of the pilot CHAMP study in Kwadedangendlale, South Africa.(2005) Colvelle, Nkosikhona N.; Paruk, Zubeda.This study explored the social networks and social support of parents in Embo and Molweni, two villages of KwaDedangendlale outside Durban. The study is part of a larger South African project, CHAMP-SA (Collaborative HN/AIDS Adolescent Mental Health Project). CHAMP-SA is an adaptation of CHAMP which originated in the USA. CHAMP works with pre-adolescents and their families in addressing parenting issues with the aim of re-establishing the adult protective shield for these children. The current study evaluates the social network component of the pilot phase of CHAMP-SA. The first part of the current study was quantitative and employed a repeated measures quasi-experimental design intervention with both the experimental and control groups. The second, qualitative part used individual interviews to interrogate the results of the quantitative data. Content analysis was used to determine what factors impeded or enhanced the process of social networking. Bronfenbrenner's Systemic Ecological Theoretical Model was used to understand these at a personal, interpersonal and community level.Item Parenting in the time of AIDS.(2011) Paruk, Zubeda.; Petersen, Inge.This thesis reports on a formative evaluation study conducted, firstly, to inform an adaptation of the Collaborative HIV Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Program (CHAMP) so as to strengthen the adult protective shield in order to prevent high risk behaviour and HIV among children in the targeted community in Embo, Kwadedangendlale, KwaZulu-Natal (Study 1); and secondly, after a pilot intervention, to evaluate the adapted programme in order to understand the processes involved in strengthening the adult protective shield (Study 2). The research design for both Study 1 and Study 2 was qualitative in nature. More specifically, the two studies used a focused ethnographic case study approach. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data from both studies and three theoretical approaches facilitated the understanding of the data: Joffe’s psychoanalytic extension of social representation theory, Carpiano’s integrative theory of social capital, and Campbell and Murray’s critical approach to community health psychology. The participants in the first study were a volunteer convenience sample of parents of children aged 9-12 years from a school in the targeted community. Focus groups and in depth follow up interviews were conducted with the parents. Interviews were also conducted with key members of the community. At the community level, lack of containment emerged as an overarching theme, with splitting and lack of trust as subthemes interpreted as emerging to deal with anxiety. Anxiety was also linked to stigmatization of people suspected of being HIV positive or having AIDS. Coping mechanisms used to deal with stigmatization were silence and denial. Linked to the issue of stigmatization was that of death and bereavement. At the family level, disempowerment of caregivers emerged as an overarching theme creating anxiety for parents, one of the sources of which was the generational knowledge gap, with parents being generally less educated than their children. This was linked to two issues: that of children’s rights; and parents’ attempts to resort to severe forms of authoritarian parenting. In the second study, in-depth semi-structured interviews, based on the themes that had emerged from the pre-intervention focused ethnographic study, were conducted with a volunteer convenience sample of nine mothers who had been part of the CHAMPSA intervention. Two broad themes emerged: Individual empowerment, including the subthemes parental empowerment, women empowerment, and social support and social leverage; and collective empowerment, including the subthemes informal social control and community organisation, and HIV/AIDS stigma. The findings of the second study contributed to the development of a model showing how improved parent child communication and parental HIV knowledge at the individual level as well as renegotiated, empowered parental identities facilitated through the group process restored parental authority at the individual level as well as collectively, strengthening social capital and restoring the adult and community protective shields.Item Polygamy in South Africa : an exploratory study of women's experiences.(2004) Hendricks, Shariefa.; Paruk, Zubeda.Four Muslim senior wives, 35 years and older, were interviewed about their experiences in a polygamous marriage. The Theory of Gender and Power was used to understand some of the emerging themes in the gendered relationships between men and women in polygamous relationships. Thematic content analysis revealed the overarching theme of power. The women expressed helplessness in the face of a practice that they consider objectionable on the one hand, but that they feel compelled to tolerate because their religion permits it. In order to cope with their pain there was a need to assign blame for their husband's remarriage. Blame was attributed to both internal and external causes. Senior wives equate polygamy with "infidelity" and therefore perceived it as an act of betrayal, Consequently, this led to feelings of anger, rejection, pain and jealousy, and subsequently the nonacceptance of the junior wife into the marital dyad. The women reported feelings of loss with regard to the marital relationship, such as loss of financial support, trust, self esteem, identity, dignity and sense of self. For these senior wives, polygamy resulted in loss of sexual exclusivity, shared intimacy and security, which was accompanied by feelings of humiliation and degradation. The women believed that polygamy resulted in straining the relationship between children and their fathers. Children were reported to have experienced emotional, behavioural and academic problems.Item Psychological and demographic correlates of athletic identity in elite South African swimmers.(2005) Van Heerden, Kirsten.; Paruk, Zubeda.This study aimed to investigate if the strength of athletic identity affected the rankings (or salience hierarchy) of 6 every-day life roles among 100 elite South African Swimmers. The link between performance and athletic identity was also investigated along with an investigation of the effects of age and gender. There was found to be no interaction between athletic identity and ranking of life roles; only the athlete role was found to be significantly different between high and medium athletic identity groups. A difference was found between elite and non-elite athletes in the ranking of life roles. There was also no association between athletic identity and performance. As age increased athletic identity decreased, and gender was found to have no influence on athletic identity.Item Stress levels among government secondary school teachers in a semirural area of KwaZulu-Natal.(2006) Monareng, Sadick.; Paruk, Zubeda.There is little or no information regarding stress levels among teachers in semi-rural government secondary schools in South Africa. Furthermore, findings regarding the relationship between gender, age and teaching experience and teacher stress appear to be equivocal. The present study aims to examine the levels of stress among a group of semirural secondary school teachers, and whether there is a relationship between stress levels and gender, age, teaching experience and medical/psychiatric treatment. The researcher employed a survey using the Professional Life Stress Scale (PLSS) to assess teachers' stress levels. The demographic checklist consisted of the following items: gender, age, length of service in the teaching profession, psychiatric or medical treatment during the previous 3 months. Participants included 102 teachers, 38 of whom were males and 64 were female, from 9 selected government schools in the Durban semirural area. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample. T-tests were used to determine the relationship between gender and total stress scores, as well as to determine gender differences on individual items on the PLSS. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to determine the relationship between age and teaching experience and total stress scores. Chi squares were used to determine whether there was a relationship between gender and category of stress. In addition, reasons for obtaining medical/psychiatric services were examined. The research findings indicate that these secondary teachers are experiencing high levels of stress and that gender, age, teaching experience have no significant effect on their levels of stress. In addition, few participants seek psychological and medical services and most participants report psychosomatic symptoms.