Isikhathi sokulala: How boys and girls in a south African urban squatter camp experience bedtime

Abstract

This paper focuses on the content of everyday practice of African girls and boys aged ten to fourteen years, within a squatter camp in the Johannesburg inner city, at a time of day when adult and youth interests have to be reconciled within a small physical, private space. It shows how certain long-standing indigenous African tenets regarding child rearing continue to underpin the rationale for adult decisions yet have to be stretched to accommodate a changing socio-cultural order.