This article draws on the five other papers from South Africa in this issue of "Gender and Education" to consider how Southern theory has been developed and is developing in relation to gender and education in South Africa. We argue that Southern theory is not an on-the-shelf solution to global geopolitical inequalities but a work in process that…

This paper examines young South African school children's understanding of HIV/AIDS. Based on ethnographic work in two schools in Greater Durban, it explores the impact of HIV/AIDS on the ways in which gender and sexuality are articulated against the backdrop of race and class specific contexts. The first part of the paper examines the children's…

Argues that schools are highly sexualized sites, within which struggles around sexuality are pervasive, of consuming interest and, at the same time, taboo. Suggests that struggles around gender, explicit homophobia, and implicit heterosexism within schools derive from and feed macho and misogynistic versions of masculinity. Argues that sexism in…