Education Academic Awarded Prestigious B1 rating from NRF

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Professor Deevia Bhana of the School of Education has been awarded a B1 rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF).

The rating is allocated to scholars who have earned considerable international recognition for the high quality and impact of their recent research outputs.

Dean and Head of the School of Education Professor Thabo Msibi said the rating was significant in the history of the School. ‘Given the rarity of this rating from the NRF - it is unusual to have a scholar in Education whose work is recognised by peers as enjoying considerable international recognition and considered by others as an indication of leadership internationally. We are extremely proud of Professor Bhana for this accomplishment,’ he said.

‘Professor Bhana’s commitment to high quality scholarship is well known in the School. Her work is emblematic of the high quality we seek from everyone in the School and I hope all will be inspired to follow in her footsteps. Well done Professor Bhana, you are an inspiration to us all.’

Bhana is the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI/NRF) South African Research Chair in Gender and Childhood Sexuality. Her focus on young sexualities and masculinities, the early formation of gender ideologies and violence and her interests in sexual health and young families take an interdisciplinary approach foregrounding the material, symbolic and discursive forces which shape the question of children and young people’s sexual agency.

Bhana’s research operates at the very frontiers of knowledge, bringing a broad theoretical social science lens, and challenging scholarship from across the world through her empirical material, theoretical reflection and development and high-profile position in South Africa.

She has published more than145 scientific papers and book chapters in leading journals and through press houses as well as being the author of 11 books.

Her authored books include Girls and the Negotiation of Porn in South Africa: Power, Play and Sexuality (In press, Routledge); Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa (2018, Routledge); Gender and Childhood Sexuality in the Primary School (2016, Springer); Childhood Sexuality and AIDS Education: The Price of Innocence (2016, Routledge) and Under Pressure (2014, MaThoko’s Books). Her latest co-edited books include Sex and Sexualities, Sexual Health and Justice: Perspectives from Southern Africa (In press, Routledge) and Gender, Sexuality and Violence in South African Educational Spaces (2021, Palgrave Macmillan).

Bhana is also an editor-in-chief of Children & Society (WILEY) and an associate editor of the Health Education Journal (SAGE). She serves on nine editorial boards and is currently the co-Chair of the International Research Association of Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies (RINGS). RINGS ‘connects leading research institutes and centres from Africa, Australia, Europe, and North and Central America and aims to facilitate collaboration and contacts within gender studies across the world’.

As Research Chair, Bhana is actively involved in supervising a large cohort of students and has a significant impact in building the research profile of the next generation of young scholars in the field of gender, childhood sexualities and schooling.

The B1 NRF Rating is testimony of the high quality and impact of her research and some indication of her leading international status in the field.

Words: Melissa Mungroo

Photograph: Supplied