Mapping the study: Some guiding Principles
5.3 Data production methods
rework and re-imagine the past. We reflect back upon ourselves and entertain what we have and could become. They argue that “what is included or omitted from our stories makes plausible our anticipated futures” (p. 5). This relates to Hampl‟s (1996, p. 270) argument that “memories of negative experiences, especially painful incidents, are the most vivid in our minds.” This has been particularly true for this study because the women teachers were able to reflect on memories of experiences that could be labelled as having been negative or painful for them.
According to Mitchell and Weber (1999, p. 56) memories of grief can be put to good use.
They posit that “retrieval of those memories can influence one‟s work both in the classroom and professional life generally.” Berger and Quinney (2005, p. 10) believe that a compelling story connects personal experiences to public narratives and therefore allows society to “speak itself” through each individual. DeHay (1994) also brings up the fact that in remembering, we reclaim and protect our past which dominant cultures often suppress. This, according to DeHay, implies that “remembering is crucial in the process of gaining control over one‟s life” (p. 43-44). Mitchell and Weber (1999, p. 9) state that
“remembering is a nostalgic act”, which can equip teachers with the skills to use their own schooling experiences in order to develop and improve their teaching.
Allender and Allender (2006, p. 15) argue that “unless we as teachers are conscientiously aware of what is driving our choices of behaviour in the classroom, we are likely to revert to the ways of the teachers who taught us.” Samaras, Hicks, and Berger (2004, p. 908) also argue that “our past experiences of learning create hidden personal narratives that have a profound and sometimes intractable impact on the way we teach our students.”
Hence breaking away from ineffective pedagogies can help us discover our personal strengths. Using memory work in this study has helped the women teachers to reflect on their experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools such that they could make those experiences usable in their present and future teaching of sexuality education.
5.3.2 Visual participatory methods
Using visual and participatory approaches for research has become popular in the social sciences. A growing body of scholarship in education (see Karlsson, 2001; Mitchell, De Lange, Moletsane, Stuart, & Buthelezi, 2005; Stuart, 2006), is using image-based strategies in their research methodology. In this study I employed photos and drawings to produce data on women teachers‟ understanding and positioning in relation to sexuality education. My choice for these methods was driven by the fact that the trying out of visual participatory methods is itself an intervention, a way of taking action and bringing about social change (Schratz & Walker, 1995). Central to my choice of visual participatory methods was the knowledge that such an approach can be enjoyable, flexible and deeply engaging to each individual‟s unique understandings and experiences of teaching about sexuality.
5.3.2.1 Photo-voice
Wang (1999) used photo-voice with rural women in China. Some scholars have also used photo-voice with children (see Ewald, 1996, 2001; Karlsson, 2001) and with trainee teachers (Stuart, 2006). These studies show that photo-voice can be used as a tool with participants to allow them to explore and engage with sensitive issues. Each participant‟s photograph represents a personal choice as well as a personal interpretation of reality (Goldstein, 2007), and therefore communicates that. The intention was for women teachers to be given simple point-and-shoot cameras to take photographs that depicted what sexuality meant to them.
However, the pilot project showed that this would not be feasible because of the sensitivity of the topic and the ease of getting ready situations that depicted sexuality.
Therefore ready made photographs from magazines were used instead and the participants just chose the pictures that suited their project. The women teachers were given a prompt to use for choosing photographs that represented their view of what sexuality entailed and to write an explanation on why the particular photographs were selected. The purpose of using the photo-voice project was to get an understanding of how the women teachers understood the phenomenon of sexuality and how their
understanding related to their teaching of sexuality education and the way they experienced the teaching. While I acknowledge that it was easier to use magazine photographs, I also want to highlight the influence of such media on the women teachers‟
conceptions of sexuality and my bias in the selection of the magazines used. I argue that if the women had produced their own photographs, they might have presented something seldom seen or discussed.
5.3.2.2 Drawings
Drawing is a powerful technique for eliciting opinions and beliefs and generating discussion around an issue of interest (Stuart, 2006). Martin (1998) argues that drawings can offer an entry point and provide insight into the experiences and perceptions of the people producing the drawings. Schratz and Walker (1995, p. 77) observe that:
Where photographs can take us behind the scenes and allow us to share witness with the researcher, drawings can take us inside the mind of the subject...the ways in which people draw things, their relative size and placement of objects for example can at least give us a starting point from which to ask questions.
Drawings were used in this study to get the women teachers‟ representations of their women and teacher selves. The drawings were used to allow me to get inside the minds of the women teachers in order to explore how they saw themselves as women and as teachers. Each drawing was accompanied by a written explanation of how the women teachers saw themselves as women and as teachers of sexuality education. The drawings revealed powerful metaphors that showed women teachers‟ understandings of themselves and the meanings they made of their multiple identities.
5.3.3 Focus group interviews
I chose to conduct focus group discussions with the women teachers to offer them a chance to talk about their memory accounts, drawings and photo-stories. Patton (2002, p.
405) argues that a good interview lays open “thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and experiences, not only to the interviewer but also the interviewee.” He also attests that even though interviews may be intrusive in re-opening old wounds, they can also be healing. However, he warns that when interviewees open up and are willing to talk then
interviews pose the risk of becoming confessions particularly under the promise of confidentiality (cf. Willig, 2001). I was therefore aware of these arguments as I conducted the interviews which also seemed to be very intrusive particularly concerning the issue of sexuality in the women teachers‟ lives. Focus group discussions were chosen for their ability to provide researchers with tools for understanding the experiences and opinions of participants that may not come out through individual interviews (Krueger, 1994). Krueger and Casey (2000) also write that because of human being are social animals, focus groups become enjoyable to participants. The aim was to understand women teachers‟ experiences of teaching sexuality education, how they taught about sexuality, HIV and AIDS in their lessons and how they positioned themselves and are positioned as women and as teachers.
Focus groups are effective for collecting data from a number of people at the same time, without demanding a lot of structuring on the part of the researcher (Krueger, 1994;
O‟Brien, 1993). Focus groups have also been hailed in promoting women‟s social justice issues by exposing and validating women‟s everyday experiences of oppression, their collective resistance and strategies for survival (Madriz, 2000). Additionally, Krueger (1994, p. 8) argues that “interactions among participants enhance data quality.
Participants tend to provide checks and balances on each other, which weeds out false or extreme views.” Within the African context groups are the basic units of social activity and hence this makes focus groups an ideal method of data production (Obeng-Quaido, 1987). Thus this method was also suitable in rural Lesotho.
As mentioned in Chapter one, Basotho women are renowned for their communal practices and hence group activities are the norm, especially in the rural areas. Within the group, chances of getting information that might not come up in one-on-one discussions were improved. The women teachers had the opportunity to share their experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools within an environment which was conducive because the groups were single-sex groups. This allowed them to openly discuss sensitive experiences which might not have come up in a mixed-sex group.