What's moral for township youth?

Being good in a bad world: What's 'moral' for township youth?

How does growing up in a township affect your moral formation? Does it impact negatively or positively? Are township youth more or less moral than their middle-class counterparts? These were the key questions that led SHARLENE SWARTZ to conduct her doctoral research on the moral lives of South Africa�s township youth.

Over 15 months, 37 young people, aged between 15 and 19 who live in the Langa-Khayelitsha corridor of Cape Town, spoke openly and in a sophisticated way of their understanding of morality. They exhibited conventional values in areas such as substance use, violence and crime, while questioning conservative values around sex, money and respect. Despite self-identifying much of their behaviour as 'wrong', young people locate themselves as overwhelming 'good' while positioning others as either protected 'mommy's babies', 'right ones', 'skollies' or 'kasi boy/girl'.


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