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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

Colloquium probes solutions for student hunger

2015-08-03

While higher education is deemed necessary for future financial security, high tuition and accommodation fees, as well as increasing food prices, are forcing students to drop out of university.

Dr Louise van den Berg, Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the University of the Free State (UFS), says university campuses are not often associated with food insecurity, but, due to the increase in first-generation students and students of low-income households receiving tertiary education, student hunger at some of the country’s prominent campuses needs urgent intervention.

On 14 August 2015, the University of the Free State (UFS) will host the first higher education colloquium in the country, on food insecurity on university campuses. Best practices will be shared, exploring the available research on student food insecurity at institutions of higher education. Programme of the colloquium.

A study by the UFS Department of Nutrition and Dietetics found that as many as 60% of students on our campuses were food-insecure, and experienced hunger. This study was the first of its kind in South Africa, and led to the No Student Hungry Bursary Programme (NSH) at the UFS. The level of severe food insecurity reported was much higher than that reported in Australia, New York, and Hawaii by the only other three studies that have been done.

“The UFS is not the only campus struggling with food insecurity,” say Dr Van den Bergh.

“The general misconception is that a student, having money for studies, should have money for food. Funders need to reassess bursaries, keeping issues such as food insecurity in mind, and not just focusing on tuition.”

Bursaries, especially government funding, became easily available to bridge the inequality gap in our country.

“Although bursaries pay for tuition, many students have no resources for food. Universities currently have a 50% drop-out rate currently, with many students dropping out due to poverty.”

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