Puberty education as protest: A qualitative study of primary school teacher engagement in Sierra Leone

• In Event: Teachers' resistance and protests for a more equitable education system and society

Proposal

Introduction: Ensuring young people receive adequate information and guidance about puberty is essential for healthy adolescent transitions. Teachers play a pivotal role in this period of childhood development. However, even as many countries move toward including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in national curricula, complex facets of puberty during early adolescence, including peer pressure and stigma related to physical and emotional changes, are rarely included.

Sierra Leone is one of the countries in the process of adopting CSE. By ratifying the 2020 National Policy on Radical Inclusion, Sierra Leone outlined objectives to develop a national CSE curriculum, which is poised to incorporate puberty education. Given this opportunity, it is important to understand how teachers can contribute to the successful uptake of puberty education in schools. Indeed, teacher training is a widely recognized gap in efforts to translate commitments to high quality education into practice. To better understand this gap, this qualitative study assessed a new puberty education delivery approach for teachers in schools in Sierra Leone.

Since 2019, two educational NGOs, one Sierra Leonean national organization and one international literacy nonprofit, have partnered in their work with teachers across Sierra Leone. This partnership has centered on two areas: promoting gender responsive pedagogy through sexual health and rights education and improving literacy. In 2019-2020, this partnership expanded, as a global puberty education NGO and [author’s university] led the development of boys’ and girls’ puberty books and a complementary teacher training guide. The aim of this study was to explore the appropriateness and usefulness of the puberty education teacher training guide for primary school teachers to introduce the puberty books in schools. This presentation will discuss: 1) how teachers in Sierra Leone used the puberty training resources during classroom instruction and in boys’ and girls’ clubs; 2) how useful the puberty education teacher training guide was for teachers; and 3) the challenges and facilitating factors that arose when delivering puberty education content to students. Exploring puberty education delivery in school settings is essential for understanding what training and educational interventions may be needed to best support teachers as catalysts for change to improve the knowledge, comfort, and safety of students during adolescence.

Methods: In 2022, the puberty books and teacher guide were distributed to 260 primary schools in Sierra Leone for use in Class 6 lessons and school-based boys’ and girls’ clubs. The research team collected qualitative data in a subset of six primary schools in three districts: Bo, Port Loko, and Western Area Urban/Rural. One urban and one rural primary school (n=6) were visited in each district. Data was also collected at teacher training institutes and with civil society and government actors. Three types of data collection methods were used: 1) in-depth interviews (IDI) with teachers and school administrators (i.e., Head Teachers) (n=13), which explored how teachers engaged with the teacher training guide and introduced puberty content to students; 2) focus group discussions (FGD) (n=12) with male and female students ages 10-14 (n=118), which explored students’ experiences using the puberty books in classrooms and boys’ and girls’ clubs; and 3) key informant interviews (KII) with government and education stakeholders (n=12), which covered opportunities and challenges for puberty education teacher training and scaling puberty education nationally.

Analysis: The research team used a “splitting” method (Bernard, 2011; Saldaña, 2013) to develop and apply exploratory and in vivo codes to 25% of all transcripts (Charmaz, 2008). Researchers independently developed initial codes that were crosschecked for consistency and continuity. These initial codes were then combined and organized based on thematic categories, resulting in a primary codebook that was circulated for review and approval by the entire study team. Researchers used Dedoose to apply the primary codebook to all transcripts and recorded analytic memos for reference during analysis. Emerging themes were identified and shared with the larger research team for further validation and discussion to generate consensus. Analysis resulted in the identification of three central themes related to teachers and puberty education.

Findings: Analysis identified three key thematic areas: 1) teacher comfort levels influenced engagement with puberty content; 2) the teacher training guide shaped teachers’ use of a greater variety of puberty education delivery methods, including participatory and individual learning strategies; and 3) system and resource constraints are persistent challenges for teachers implementing puberty education. Findings highlight avenues for strengthening teacher training and practice with delivering puberty education in schools. These include: 1) integrating puberty lessons into existing curricula to reduce additional workload on an under-resourced and understaffed teacher workforce; 2) increasing systemic support for teachers by providing pre- and in-service training on puberty education and adequate puberty education materials to meet student enrollment; 3) creating safe, comfortable spaces for students to learn about puberty in schools by accommodating for classroom gender dynamics (peer-to-peer, and student-to-teacher); 4) engaging in puberty education community sensitization with caregivers to encourage buy-in; and 5) ensuring national policies address systemic puberty education gaps through providing sustainable funding to hire and retain a trained teacher workforce, enhancing teacher training programs, and providing clear guidance on new national curriculum requirements on puberty education.

Conclusion: Teachers are uniquely positioned to catalyze change in puberty education for adolescents. However, social and structural factors often hinder teachers’ ability to provide and level of engagement in puberty education. Teaching puberty education in school settings can be a powerful form of protest against the dominant curriculum in many countries that often do not address adolescent transitions. This formative assessment provides critical learning to inform how teachers in Sierra Leone are prepared to deliver puberty education. Opportunities for future studies include assessing shifts in teaching and learning outcomes over a longer follow-up period; exploring the feasibility and effects of scaling distribution of puberty education materials; and/or integrating puberty materials with other types of teacher training as new educational policy is implemented. Findings and recommendations may also prove useful in other low- and middle-income countries where gaps in the role of teachers and influence of policy on puberty education exist.

Authors

• Susi Martinez, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University

• Marni Sommer, Columbia University

• Frances Vavrus, University of Minnesota

• Allison Carney, Grow & Know Inc.

• Sylvia Ohene Marfo, Union for African Population Studies