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Emerging Adults in Search of Self

26 September 2022 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Stephen Collett

Prof Luzelle Naude — Prof Luzelle Naudé, Professor in the Department of Psychology, delivered her inaugural lecture on the topic: In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors.

How do people endeavour to answer the question: Who am I? This is the central question that Prof Luzelle Naudé – professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Free State (UFS), has built her academic career on. Under the title of her inaugural lecture, In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors, delivered on14 September 2022, Prof Naudé traced the arc of her academic career over the past three decades.

Development as a Scholar

Prof Naudé started by giving an overview of her research as an early scholar, investigating students’ learning experiences and predictors of student success, followed by an exploration of the adolescence stage within the context of South Africa. Prof Naudé’s research interest then led her to investigating the third decade of life: emerging adulthood.

Interestingly, from the turn of the century, the group of 18- to 25-year-olds take longer to transition into adulthood. This group finds themselves in an in-between space, “not being an adolescent anymore, but definitely not being an adult either,” Prof Naudé explained. This has sparked an interesting scholarly debate: is emerging adulthood indeed a new developmental stage, or is it something only applicable to a minority of Western, affluent middle-class, university students? The answer is the former. There are actually many emerging adulthoods – also among our South African youth.

Current Research Focus

Currently, Prof Naudé is interested in the narratives of emerging adults at the intersection of self and society. The self, she pointed out, unfolds through different layers, namely the actor, the agent, and the author. “Our South African emerging adults are acting in an increasingly complex and transitioning social world. As agents, they advance through this complexity by telling redemptive stories of generativity, upward mobility, and of liberation. And as authors, they reconstruct their past, present, and future into a coherent life story and a narrative identity,” Prof Naudé said.

Naude Inaugural From the left; Dr Edwin du Plessis, Head of Department of Psychology; Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of The Humanities; Prof Luzelle Naudé , and Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research and Internationalisation. Photo: Stephen Collett.

The Way Forward

“I’ve became convinced,” Prof Naudé emphasised, “about South Africa and the Global South’s ability to contribute to global knowledge production.” Prof Naudé and her team are therefore adding a South African voice to several multicultural, multinational projects, including the African Long-Life Study – in collaboration with the University of Zurich – and the Selves within Selves project. Prof Naudé’s vision, however, is to ultimately establish an Identity Research Hub at the UFS to consolidate research activities in this field and to formalise interdisciplinary partnerships.

Watch recording video below:

News Archive

UFS presents unique rally

2006-05-11

On Friday 9 June 2006 the University of the Free State (UFS) will present the second Amazing Race Rally in Bloemfontein.

The rally is presented in aid of children and babies with serious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health in the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences. These children are in need of intensive care, and suffer from cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and conditions, endocrinological diseases or gastro-enterological conditions.

By raising the necessary funds, equipment can be acquired to meet the unique healthcare needs of these children and babies and it will also enable the UFS to maintain the high standards of education, training and research in this field.

Last year about 12 corporate teams from among others Vodacom, Medi-Clinic, Eskom, Mimosa Mall and Nedbank and four teams from the UFS competed in the rally. The Medi-Clinic team was the winner.

This year the teams will again follow a specific route with various check points by car. Here they will have to complete activities or solve clues before receiving their clue to the next checkpoint. The teams will be travelling with cars branded with the logo of the company they represent.

Companies and institutions in Bloemfontein can enter in the rally by means of sponsoring a check point, entering a team of two persons or sponsoring some aspects of the day.

The rally will give participants an opportunity to test their knowledge of the city, as well as their time management skills, communication skills, team work and even their relationships!

The programme will start at 12:00 on the UFS Main Campus and the first team to complete this task is the winner of Bloemfontein’s second Amazing Rainbow Rally.

Extensive publicity of the event on OFM in the weeks running up to the day will ensure that participants are easily recognised and will create a measure of excitement.

Enquiries about the rally can be directed to Ms Adéle van Aswegen at (051) 401-3535 or Ms Ilse Olivier at (051) 401-2415.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
11 May 2006

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