IKASI, the moral ecology of South Africa's township youth

228 pp., illus., paperback, First S.A.Edition, Johannesburg, 2010

First published in England in 2009.

In this ethnographic study Sharlene Swartz "examines how disenfranchised youth living in poverty think about morality". She worked with a group of thirty-seven young people aged between fourteen and twenty from Langa, a township near Cape Town.

"Written with tempered passion, Sharlene Swartz's award winning research heralds a powerful new voice, one that can clarify the ambiguity and ambivalence of moral development under difficult circumstances." Professor Robert Selman, Harvard University

"Sharlene Swartz has given us a stunning, prize-winning account of the morality of township youth. The brilliance of her ethnography marks a definitive shift in sociological studies of youth and the field of moral education by demonstrating the power of empirical research into moral formations." Professor Madeleine Arnot, University of Cambridge

Sociologist Sharlene Swartz is a senior research specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council and a visiting research fellow at the University of Cambridge.