What meaning do young people give to the messages they receive from the HIV and AIDS program at school, and what factors determine this? Appendix F Teachers/HIV and AIDS Questionnaire for teachers Appendix G Participatory workshops for students/young people (role play).
Introduction
For example, studies have found that a large number of men and women in southern African countries believe that women do not have the right to refuse sex (SAfAIDS, 2015). These beliefs suggest that women have limited power in families and communities and, as a result, are vulnerable to gender-based violence, including rape, which puts them at risk of HIV infection.
The Role of Education in the Fight Against HIV and AIDS
HIV and AIDS Education in Education Institutions in Lesotho
The aim is also to incorporate HIV and AIDS issues into teacher training and school curricula. Other initiatives focusing on HIV and AIDS in the education sector include the finalization of the Ministry of Education and Training's (MOET) School Health and Nutrition Policy, the development of Life Skills Education (LSE) Curriculum, the establishment of support structures in schools (training ). teachers in lay counselling), the establishment of youth-friendly health services and the School Feeding Scheme (Ministry of Education and Training and Ministry of Health, 2015).
Rationale for the Study
However, available research suggests that teachers avoid teaching HIV and AIDS content in the curriculum. Thus, this study further focused on teachers' preparedness for their role as youth HIV and AIDS educators in schools.
Purpose of the Study
The key research question asked in this study was: What meaning do young people make of the messages they receive from the school's HIV and AIDS programs and what factors determine the meaning they make. What is the curriculum policy that informs the teaching of HIV and AIDS education in Lesotho secondary schools.
Overview of the Theoretical Framework
To analyze data related to the second sub-question: How are teachers trained for their role as HIV and AIDS educators in schools. To analyze data related to the third sub-question: How do young people in schools experience the HIV and AIDS education programs, the study used Durkheim's theory of meaning making.
Overview of the Methodological Approach
A key analytical focus was on young people's understanding of HIV and AIDS educational interventions and the factors that inform them. This was done to understand the meaning that participants give to HIV and HIV prevention messages, as well as their representations of them.
Ethical Issues
The first phase of data analysis began as soon as the data collection process began and continued throughout the study. Focus group interviews and role plays were audiotaped with the participants' permission.
Overview of the Thesis
The literature review concludes with an examination of the meaning young people give to the messages they receive from school education programs on HIV and AIDS. It concludes with a number of key propositions about the meaning young people give to the HIV and AIDS messages they receive from the school curriculum and the factors that give these meanings.
Introduction
Second, the scholarship on HIV and AIDS interventions that combat the epidemic is reviewed. The literature review concludes with an examination of the meaning young people have been observed to attach to the messages they receive from school-based HIV and AIDS education programs.
HIV Prevalence among Young People
Therefore, the thesis asks: What factors influence youth vulnerability in the context of multiple HIV and AIDS interventions in schools and communities. The section below provides a review of the literature examining the factors that influence young people's vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.
Factors that Influence Young People’s Vulnerability to HIV Infection
- Unequal Gender Norms
- Gender-Based Violence
- HIV and AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination
- Rurality and Young People’s Vulnerability to HIV Infections
- Inadequate and Inappropriate Curriculum
- Poor Teacher Preparation
In general, youth living in rural households face several challenges, including HIV infection and AIDS (DBE and MIET Africa, 2010). In Lesotho in particular, the HIV and AIDS curriculum did not effectively address young people's vulnerability to HIV infection.
HIV and AIDS Education Programming in Lesotho
Inadequate HIV and AIDS Education in Schools
The literature suggests that without adequate training, educators are not successful in effectively implementing the curriculum policies and teaching HIV and AIDS to young people. In the South African context, researchers have suggested that the teaching of sexuality education and HIV and AIDS is largely ineffective.
HIV and AIDS Education and Meaning-making among Young People
Knowledge of HIV and AIDS
The author concluded that “this is primarily due to cultural constraints that dictate selective presentation of sexual health issues and limited accessibility of information, which hinders holistic education about HIV and AIDS” (p. 190). One of the main factors that continue to influence understandings and discourses about HIV and AIDS is the HIV-related stigma and taboo on talking about sex and sexuality, especially between adults and young people.
HIV and AIDS Metaphors
The first is the notion of HIV and AIDS as an enemy (invader) that enters a place (body) without warning to fight (cause pain) the country's inhabitants (the white blood cells that protect the body from disease ). For the same reasons, another study conducted among the Ovambo people found that HIV and AIDS were called ekiya (thorn) and Katanga kamufifi (hot ball) (Thomas, 2008).
Myths and misconceptions about HIV and AIDS
This thesis argues that metaphors tend to influence how young people understand and understand the HIV and AIDS messages they receive from curriculum interventions inside and outside the education system. The literature suggests that the information about HIV and AIDS that young people receive from various social institutions, including schools, influences how they understand and respond to interventions.
Discussion
The preceding discussion illustrates the status of HIV and AIDS teaching in the school curriculum. Schools (and other institutions such as churches) respond to HIV and AIDS based on these views.
Synthesis
Introduction
From this review, a conceptual framework has emerged for understanding meaning-making among young people in connection with HIV and AIDS education in a rural secondary school in Lesotho. Finally, the literature suggests that young people's experience of HIV and AIDS education in schools is varied and paradoxical.
Theoretical Framework
What Works in School-based HIV and AIDS Interventions? A Theory of Change
The Symbolic Interaction Theory
Another theory used to analyze the data in this study is symbolic interaction theory. Another study that used symbolic interaction theory was conducted by Milkman, Akinola & Chugh (2014).
Durkheim’s Theory of Meaning-Making
While Durkheim's meaning-making theory (1933) asserts that the process of collective meaning-making fundamentally shapes the human psyche (Nisbett et al, 2001), Weber (1978) observed that meaning varies from society to society, and that in order to understand social action, one understands its importance for the actor. Niemi (2013) used Durkheim's theory of meaning making in their study of the 'Perceived Effect of HIV and AIDS on Other Identities'.
Discussion
The second sub-question in this study was: How are teachers trained for their role as HIV and AIDS educators in schools. The third sub-question in this study was: How do young people in schools understand and respond to the HIV and AIDS education programs in schools.
Synthesis
81. As Figure 3.1 illustrates, data analysis is based on the notion that addressing youth vulnerability to HIV infection depends on three conditions: 1) changing school culture and its programming around HIV and AIDS, 2) providing an adequate and relevant preliminary. - and in-service teacher education to deliver HIV and AIDS education, and 3) changing the extent and ways in which young people understand and respond to the HIV and AIDS messages they receive from school. In the next chapter I discuss the research design and methodology used to address the research questions raised in the study.
Introduction
Research Paradigm
In this study, learners were asked to comment on the messages they receive from the HIV and AIDS curriculum in school. Placing this study within the interpretive paradigm enabled me to describe the experiences of young people in a Lesotho secondary school and the meaning they make of the HIV and AIDS education messages they receive in and around the school .
Research Design and Methodology
- Negotiating Access to the Research Setting
- Gaining Entry
- Selecting Research Participants
- Data Generation
- Questionnaire
- Document Analysis
- Participatory Methods
- Focus Group Discussions
- The Pilot Study
First, in this study, I wanted to investigate students' experiences with the HIV and AIDS messages in the classroom. I asked the participants to write pseudonymous letters to the principal about their views on the content of the HIV and AIDS curriculum in their school.
Data Analysis Procedures
- Familiarizing myself with data
- Generating Codes
- Generating Initial Themes
- Reviewing Themes
- Credibility
- Confirmability
- Transferability
- Dependability
- Locating Myself in the Research Process
I developed key concepts and ideas that enabled me to understand the data in the text (Miles and Huberman, 1994). In this study, the credibility of the data was ensured by adapting to two criteria.
Ethical Considerations
Based on this notion, I situated the study in an interpretive research paradigm that argues that knowledge is socially constructed, therefore dynamic and changing according to how people make sense of their situations, and that it is fluid and precise. For this reason, I used participatory methods such as role play, focus group interviews and letter writing to obtain participants' perspectives on the phenomenon under study.
Limitations of the study
Synthesis
Introduction
I analyzed the international and national political frameworks that govern HIV and AIDS education in schools. Secondly, it analyzes the teachers' role expectations with regard to HIV and AIDS education in schools.
The Curriculum Policy Context
The International Policy Context
Using these theoretical lenses, the chapter first provides an analysis of the curriculum policies that underpin the teaching of HIV and AIDS education in secondary schools and teacher training institutions in Lesotho. In addition, other SDGs among the 17 could likely contribute to addressing HIV and AIDS by 2030.
The National Policy Context
Of particular importance was the incorporation of HIV and AIDS into the existing school and teacher training curricula. Good quality education in itself is a powerful weapon in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
School-level Policy
Surprisingly, none of the three lesson plans covered any topics related to HIV and AIDS. The plan was to be presented to the parents for their approval and participation in the development of the school's HIV and AIDS education policy.
How are teachers trained for their role as HIV and AIDS educators?
Pre-service Teacher Education
Experts and patients (People living positively with HIV and AIDS) are also invited to address students about HIV and AIDS. This is despite the fact that teachers are expected to teach LSE in general and HIV and AIDS education in particular at school level.
In-service Teacher Education
Failure to adhere to the principles could have negative consequences for HIV and AIDS education in schools. Without these, it is likely that HIV and AIDS intervention programs will not be successful (see, for example, Rofes, 1994).
How prepared do teachers feel for teaching HIV and AIDS Education?
Inadequacy of Pre-service and In-service Teacher Education
I am a qualified mathematics teacher and I am trying to competently educate students about HIV and AIDS in my classroom. The teachers in this study reported that they felt inadequately trained in their role of teaching about HIV and AIDS.
Socio-cultural norms as a barrier to HIV and AIDS education in schools
As such, in teaching HIV and AIDS content, teachers must explicitly raise issues often considered private, while at the same time being sensitive to the norms and values of the communities in which schools are located. As such, the need for HIV and AIDS education, as well as sexuality education, cannot be overstated.
Synthesis
The curriculum has been revised to accommodate life skills education and the integration of HIV and AIDS. They reported that they did not feel adequately trained to educate students about HIV and AIDS.
Introduction
Following Taylor (1977), I obtained detailed descriptions from the students' own perceptions as a means of exploring their meaning-making in the context of the school HIV and AIDS education program. The analysis in this chapter is based on the idea that students' experiences with HIV and AIDS and the messages they receive about them in and around schools largely determine how they actively deal with this epidemic in their social lives.
Learners’ Experiences of the HIV and AIDS Curriculum
- HIV and AIDS curriculum as informative
- HIV and AIDS curriculum as inadequate
- HIV and AIDS curriculum as unrealistic
- HIV and AIDS curriculum as uncomfortable
However, the study's findings suggest that students' experiences of the HIV and AIDS curriculum at school varied. The study reveals that students' experiences of HIV and AIDS education at school are varied.
Learners’ Understandings of HIV and AIDS
- HIV and AIDS knowledge among learners
- Condoms reduce sexual pleasure
- Abstinence causes madness
- Condoms give people diseases
- HIV is a western invention against African people and their culture
The above letter illustrates how the learners' understanding of HIV and AIDS includes myths (abstinence causes madness for the man; HIV and AIDS are caused by witchcraft) and denial (there is no such thing as HIV). The second myth the learners had about HIV and AIDS was that abstinence causes insanity in men.
Metaphors for HIV and AIDS
- HIV and AIDS as Danger
- HIV as witchcraft
- HIV as punishment
- HIV as a conspiracy by the West
In South Africa, the youth have developed a special township language to refer to HIV and AIDS. The result of this is that learners respond to HIV and AIDS according to the.
Factors That Inform Learners’ Understanding
Disconnect between cultural beliefs in the home and the school curriculum
Power Relations and decision making
Gender roles
Stigma, discrimination and fear
Syntheses
Introduction
Methodological Reflections
Overview of the Thesis
Analysis
From Curriculum Policy to Classroom Teaching
Teachers’ Role Preparedness for HIV and AIDS Education
Young People’s Experiences of HIV and AIDS Education
- Learners’ Experiences of HIV and AIDS Education
- Learners’ Understandings of HIV and AIDS
- Factors Influencing HIV and AIDS Meaning-Making
Discussion
Contributions of The Study
Implications
Changing the Curricular Context
Changing the Policy Context
Implications for Further Research
Conclusion
