Mediating Sexuality and HIV and AIDS in Schools: Power Relations, Gender, and Dominant Heterosexual Discourses

• In Event: Sexuality, Society, and Pedagogy: Teaching About Sexual Diversity in the South African Context

Abstract

The qualitative enquiry reported in this paper draws on data gathered over a three-year period from teachers in two provinces in South Africa about their experiences as HIV and AIDS educators. We adopted a critical enquiry methodology (Lather, 2006) as we aimed to encourage life skills teachers to critically reflect on their social, individual and professional identities in relation to the content they teach in HIV and sexuality lessons. By conducting a series of bi-annual workshops with purposefully recruited (Creswell, 2005) teachers in two provinces (Mpumalanga – 38 females and 6 males - and the Western Cape – 32 females and 4 males), we hoped to help participants change how they addressed HIV education to make it more socially embedded and relevant.
Analysis of the video-taped discussions revealed that teachers experience tensions between what they are supposed to be teaching and the cultural, social and personal experiences that have shaped and continue to impact their own personal and professional identities. Power relations, gender and heterosexuality are key themes interwoven in the contexts in which teachers make meaning of their lives and, therefore, have consequences for the way they made meaning of their professional duties as life skills teachers.
Constructions of gender that assign certain characteristics, domains and activities to men and the opposite to women were prevalent in the way female teachers in particular described themselves and their positions and roles. A male teacher in Mpumalanga confirmed that a commonly held view by boys is that beating a girl signifies his love for her. Boys who do not subscribe to these normalised forms of behaviour tend to be labelled and berated as ‘moffies’ (weak and effeminate boys). Women, unfortunately, also tend to collude in this perception (Wood, 2009).
The findings of this study are supported by other research that shows that teachers tend to be knowledgeable about HIV and AIDS (Theron, 2005) and are fairly comfortable conveying information (Visser, 2005), but are not so adept at managing their own feelings and biases, or exploring and challenging social and cultural norms that influence their personal identities, behaviour and decision-making.

References
Creswell, J. W. 2005. Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: New Jersey: Pearson Merritt Prentice Hall.
Lather, P. 2006. Paradigm proliferation as a good thing to think with: Teaching qualitative research as a wild profusion. Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(1): pp. 35–57.
Theron, L.C. (2005) Educator perception of educators’ and learners’ HIV status with a view to wellness promotion. South African Journal of Education, 25: 56-60.
Visser, M. 2005. Life skills training as HIV/AIDS preventive strategy in secondary schools: evaluation of a large-scale implementation process. SAHARA, 2(1) pp. 203-216.
Wood, L.2009. What kind of respect is this? Shifting the mindsets of teachers on cultural perspectives of HIV & AIDS. Action Research, 7(4): pp.405–422.

Authors

• Jean Baxen, Rhodes University

• Lesley Wood, North-West University