Violence among learners in South African schools is a pressing concern. The minister of basic education told parliament in 2025 that hundreds of bullying cases had been reported in the first few weeks of the year. Since then, a series of alarming incidents have further drawn public attention.

While these occurrences mirror the high rates of violence in the country, they are also symptoms of systemic challenges within South African schools.

In 2015 the government introduced the National School Safety Framework to set minimum standards of safety and help schools understand and meet their responsibilities. It noted “the relationship between violence and other ecological factors relating to safe and caring schools by locating the school within its broader community”.

The framework suggests an awareness of structural determinants of violence in schools. But the sustained rise in incidents of interpersonal violence among learners points to the need for renewed attention, especially among schoolboys.

We are researchers whose interests include the anthropology of masculinities and health, and inclusive education and children’s geographies. In a recent study we encountered a practice in schools called ukufikisana: a kind of initiation through which senior boys assert their dominance over junior boys, often through violence and intimidation.

Derived from the isiZulu phrase ukufikisana emandleni (“testing each other’s power”), the practice shares similarities with “hazing” or bullying. But it also reveals the social and cultural dimensions of violence within schools. For instance, schoolboys described ukufikisana as how one becomes “fully a boy”, suggesting that the experience and exertion of violence are inevitable.

Our findings demonstrate how ukufikisana reinforces hierarchical gender relations and normalises violence as a means of navigating power and identity among boys. This is deeply entrenched in the school environment.

We suggest that solutions lie in the interplay of poverty, violence and gender norms.

What boys said about bullying

The study drew on a larger photovoice study exploring learners’ perspectives on violence in and around their school. It focused on 14 teenage boys (aged 14-17) attending a poorly resourced, co-educational school in Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal province. Inanda is an urban area characterised by poverty, unemployment and high levels of violence and crime. Its circumstances are a legacy of the policies applied to black South Africans under apartheid.

The study engaged boys as experts in their own lives, allowing them to share their experiences through images and films. We followed ethical protocols to get consent from schools, parents and learners. A social worker was available to provide support.

We prompted the participants to visually depict what violence looked like in their school environment.

Working in pairs, the boys captured images of simulated acts and experiences of violence using cellphones, discussed them and added captions. Then they presented this material in focus group discussions, which were recorded audiovisually and transcribed. We looked for themes in what was discussed.

The boys produced images showing the various ways that violence emerged at school. In one instance, two participants recreated a stabbing incident in which senior boys threatened to stab a junior boy.

Senior boys spoke of ukufikisana as an initiation practice that reinforced their position as “leaders”. One described the “younger and powerless boys” as “puppets”; another said “it’s to show them who is boss in this school”. Another spoke of it as a “baptism of fire”, saying:

they must always be prepared for it because it is coming for them … We show them that we are in charge of the school and they must respect that.

Younger boys told us:

They don’t listen when we try to stop them; they just threaten to beat us.

I was scared of them. So I just kept quiet and let them do whatever they wanted.

It hurt in more ways than one. One boy said:

Ukufikisana is not just what they do; it is also what they say to you … After that experience, I just kept to myself, and I am now more reserved at school.

What ukufikisana does

From our analysis of what the boys said, it appears that ukufikisana serves a dual function. For senior boys, it works as a rite of passage that solidifies their position as “fully boys”, and warrants their demonstration of physical strength, authority and control. For junior boys, the experience enforces submission and vulnerability, framing them as incomplete or “lesser boys”.

Read more: Bullies in South African schools were often bullied themselves – insights from an expert

This dynamic normalises violence among boys in school settings. It also perpetuates rigid and harmful ways of being boys at school. At school, boys must always be ready to fight and to show their power through violence.

From this perspective, it’s possible to understand why violence may be prevalent and persisting in some South African schools.

Read more: Violent behaviour shows up at primary school -- and can end there too

For most boys, ukufikisana primes boys to think that bullying and the reinforcement of power through violence are key attributes for their lives. The participants described how this practice shaped their daily interactions, fostering a culture where dominance and submission were ingrained in their understanding of what it meant to be a man.

Read more: Why girls continue to experience violence at South African schools

These findings align with broader concerns raised in recent anti-bullying research, globally and locally, which highlights the need for school approaches to address bullying.

What needs to change

We suggest that to effectively combat bullying, schools should move beyond punitive measures and zero-tolerance policies. Instead, they should adopt participatory and community-driven strategies that not only consider the interplay of poverty, violence and gender norms, but also allow learners to contribute to possible solutions to violence.

One way this might be done is through actively involving learners as equal stakeholders in school violence interventions.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Melusi Andile Dlamini, Rhodes University

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Melusi Andile Dlamini receives funding from the National Research Foundation.

Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.