Negotiating gender identities in higher education: experiences of female residence assistants at selected student residences in Durban.
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Date
2022
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Abstract
The phenomenon of residence assistants’ lived experiences in higher education remains an under-researched area of work despite the emerging challenges relating to gender inequality, toxic masculinities, and homophobia. A residential experience is an integral part of students’ identity, learning, and development. This suggests that “external” environments such as personal and social contribute to students’ overarching educational experiences and are crucial to be studied. Existing literature both nationally and internationally suggests a gap of knowledge, particularly the lived experiences of female residence assistants who are also final year or postgraduate students. The gap of knowledge is a concern considering the peak times of gender inequality and different forms of violence taking place in student residences such as Gender-based violence and Intimate partner violence. The aim of this study was to explore female RAs’ lived experiences of negotiating gender identities at selected student residences in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. I therefore used the intersectionality theory by Crenshaw (1989) as a theoretical framework to make sense of the participants’ experiences. This study adopted the qualitative research approach and used narrative inquiry as a research methodology. Letters and semi-structured interviews were used to generate data. Four participants wrote the letters to the researcher and were each interviewed three times. To analyse data, this study used narrative analysis (first level) and analysis of narratives (second level) approaches. The study found that female RAs experienced multiple oppressions in Durban student residences such as bullying and harassment as a result of their multiple intersecting identities. The study also found that despite the extreme challenges and pressures exerted on female RAs, they still demonstrated agency, commitment, and resilience towards negotiating for diversity, gender equality, and tolerance in student residences. The study has shown that higher education spaces, particularly student residences are still hubs of gender inequality, hostility, and intolerance towards women and the queer community. The study concludes by suggesting that there is an urgent need to study the lived experiences of residence assistants within the queer community, this will be helpful to enhance respect for diversity in higher education spaces.
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Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.