"You learn and learn and learn…. and then you are an adult": parental perceptions of adolescence in contemporary Swaziland

Adolescence, Summer, 2003 by Margaret Zoller Booth

In the final year of the study, the students, if they had continued through school on the proper trajectory, should have been in Form II (the second year of secondary school). In 1998, information gained from school records, interviews with students, or discussions with relatives and friends indicated that 42 students remained in the school system. Of these 42 students, 21 were males, constituting 60% of the original sample of boys, and 21 were females, or 47% of the original sample of girls. Information collected during 1998 revealed that only 11 (5 males, 6 females) of the original 80 students (14%) managed to continue through the school system at the proper rate and were located in Form II. Another 17 students (7 males, 10 females) were found in Form I; 5 students (1 male, 4 females) were in Grade 7; 7 students (6 males, 1 female) were in Grade 6; and 2 male students were in Grade 5. The students who remained in the sample in 1998 ranged in age from 13 to 16 years (M = 14.6, SD = .80).

Interviews

During each of the three principal phases of the study, the student, his/her teacher, and a parent or guardian were interviewed. The present study explores the parent interviews which took place in the home in 1998. Interviews were conducted in the language in which the parent(s) felt most comfortable, this being siSwati for the majority of these rural parents, whose average level of education was 4.8 years. A Swazi research assistant (a female undergraduate student from the University of Swaziland) conducted the interviews using a set list of questions. The primary researcher's comprehension of siSwati allowed her to follow the interviews, ask additional questions, and take notes which were later compared with the research assistant's records to check for accuracy.

The 1998 homestead interviews were comprehensive in their discussion of developments during the years since the researcher's last visit. While much information was gained regarding the family, homestead, and student, that part of the interview pertaining to the "adolescent status" of the student is the focus here. While some descriptive statistics were analyzed, the qualitative information gleaned from the interviews was most vital. This is the case in part because of the dwindling size of the sample. Of the 42 students remaining in 1998, only 29 of their parents (17 for male students and 12 for female students) were available for interviews (parents were often away or only a nonrelative guardian was available). The extended Swazi family leaves open the definition of who may constitute a make (mother) or babe (father). For this study, the definition of "parents" included stepparents, as Swaziland is a polygynous society and there may be many stepmothers in the home.

RESULTS

Parental Perceptions Regarding Childhood, Adolescence and Adulthood

As noted in the description of traditional Swazi beliefs regarding development, the siSwati language includes various terms for males and females (see Table 1). However, in contemporary society, one rarely hears these terms used when referring to a particular individual. Generally, one is referred to as either a child (umntfwana) or an adult (lokhulile). For children in particular, parents and teachers will utilize umfana for a boy and intfombatana for a girl. While umfundzi means "student," teachers will often utilize this term and umntfwana (child) interchangeably. During the first two phases of this longitudinal study (1990 and 1994), the participants were undeniably children, with average ages of approximately 6 and 10 years, respectively. Parents and teachers consistently referred to the students as children.