Deevia Bhana is the DSI/NRF South African Research Chair in Gender and Childhood Sexuality. She has written extensively on the experience of gender and sexuality in the young life course bringing a broad interdisciplinary social science lens to understanding how gender and sexuality is experienced by children and young people and the implications thereof for addressing violence, sex education and sexual health interventions. In addressing an area of high significance, the research contributes to a reconceptualization of childhood sexuality in a nascent field of study with significant practical value in expanding children and young people’s sexual agency, sexual knowledge and their right to sexual safety with a focus on the role that education plays in shaping decisions, policies and structures that impact on sexual well-being and gender equality.
Her distinctive contributions and impact are reflected in several international keynotes, invited talks and her active role in science engagement. She collaborates with researchers across the social sciences including Women and Gender Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Education. Her publications, include 11 books, and over 147 book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. Her work appears in leading journals such as AIDS Education & Prevention; British Educational Research Journal; British Journal of Sociology of Education; Gender & Education; International Journal of Educational Development; International Journal of Inclusive Education; Journal of Southern African Studies; Sexualities; Social Science and Medicine, Youth Studies.
She has authored five books and is a co-author of two books. The latest authored book is entitled Girls and the Negotiation of Porn in South Africa: Power, Play and Sexuality (In press, Routledge). She has co-edited four books. Her latest co-edited books are Gender, Sexuality and Violence in South African Educational Spaces (2021, Palgrave Macmillan) and Sex and Sexualities, Sexual Health and Justice: Perspectives from Southern Africa (In press, Routledge).
As the SARChI Chair Deevia 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.
She is the recipient of several awards. The latest award is the Medal for Social Sciences and Humanities from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Universities South Africa (USAf): Established Researcher in April 2022.
Deevia Bhana is an NRF B1 Rated Researcher.
PsySSA 2022 Workshop Series: Workshop 1 - Sexual consent in young adults: A moment or a movement?
Topic: Sexual Consent: Sex, Power and Young People
British Sociological Association New Materialisms study group seminar.
Topic: Topic: 'Teenage girls and the entanglement with online porn: A new feminist materialist perspective'
I SexAFIN International Virtual Conference “(Re)thinking about comprehensive sexuality education from a child-centered and gendered perspective”. 2nd Conference day: Strategies of CSE
Topic: Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Young Children: Needed and Denied.
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