I declare that this dissertation entitled Dominant Teachers' Discourses on Barriers to Basic Education in an HIV and AIDS Context is my own. Title Teachers' dominant discourses on barriers to basic education in an HIV and AIDS context.
Motivation and Rationale for the Research
According to Malaney (2000), teachers are faced with the challenge that the virus is undermining the structure and function of the education system. A shift in the nature and focus of research must pay close attention to where and how the production and reproduction of the HIV/AIDS discourse takes place.
Context of this Research
Baxen & Breidlid (2004) argue that HIV/AIDS research in the education sector is largely influenced by dominant discourses from the sectors of economics, medicine and epidemiology, which generally ignore the social and cultural embeddedness of the virus. Three were elementary schools (two urban and one rural) and two secondary schools (one urban and one rural) in Richmond County.
Focus of the Study
Aim of Study
However, studies have recognized a gap in research within the educational sector in relation to HIV and AIDS which suggests that research neglects the "social and cultural embeddedness of the disease" (Baxen, 2004:1). The study also examined how teachers' constructions of their experiences of teaching in a particular context shape their taken-for-granted understanding of the intersecting barriers to basic education.
Key Research Questions
Structure of dissertation
Introduction
Teacher Lives and Barriers to Basic Education in the Context of HIV and AIDS
Researching teachers in the context of HIV and AIDS: some insights
Baxen (2004) explains that within a South African context, at a micro level, teachers are affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in a number of ways. According to Akoulouze, Rugalema & Khanye (2001) teachers are the most influential adults with whom school children come in contact most often, however not many studies have been conducted on teachers' perceptions and experiences of HIV/AIDS as a barrier. to learn.
Teacher attrition, teacher stress, teacher morale and quality education in the context of HIV and AIDS
Malaney (2000) explains that increased morbidity during this period can affect productivity even when they are in the classroom. Another reason for low teacher morale is the social location of teachers.
Gender violence and vulnerability
Leach and Machakanja (2000) also report that interviews with girls and boys in the three co-educational schools as part of the Zimbabwe study revealed the widespread. In the classroom, boys and girls would whistle or hiss when a teacher called a particular girl, known to be of interest to him, to read aloud or come to the front of the class.
Curriculum as a barrier
This could explain the inhibition of speech observed among many students, especially girls, in HIV/AIDS classes. Chege (2004) explains that teachers in Botswana often encountered difficulties in various aspects of sexuality education, including teaching about HIV/AIDS. England (2003) explains that teaching colleges need to begin to consider the impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector.
Few studies consider teachers' lives as a mediating factor in the teaching (distribution) of HIV/AIDS. Baxen (2004: 9) concludes that an assumption seems to be made that if they (teachers) have knowledge of the skills to teach, they will, can and will teach effectively, regardless of how they are positioned ( or position). ) within the discourse on HIV/AIDS. It is this production of self in multiple gendered ways that teachers in the context of their work, including teaching HIV/AIDS education, has transformed teachers' roles as caregivers and carers, in ways that have major implications for pedagogy.
Attitudes and beliefs as a barrier (denial, stigma and silences)
Thus, the experiences of the past and the expectations of the future influence the self-perception of the present, and since no person has the same life experiences, we all learn to perceive the world and ourselves as part of the world in different ways. Research conducted in Namibia (Malaney, 2000) on the impact of AIDS on the education sector, teachers and school principals showed that there is indeed a high level of awareness of the disease. Another finding was that due to the extreme stigma attached to the disease, none of the teachers were willing to admit that there were any losses to AIDS in their own schools, even though principals sometimes disputed this claim.
Teachers' unions, parent-teacher associations and advocates of the Convention on the Rights of the Child have not yet tackled the issue of sexual exploitation in schools vigorously enough. Within this context, teachers were seen as of paramount importance in educating young people about HIV/AIDS. Many of the teachers who provided HIV/AIDS education claimed that they faced serious challenges in their work, especially when answering sensitive questions about sex and sexuality (Pattman & Chege, 2003).
Poverty and HIV/AIDS
In Rwanda, however, female teachers criticized “traditional cultural practices” for promoting the spread of HIV/AIDS. Ironically, they cited this in response to the question of how "elements of Rwandan culture and tradition" "can contribute to education about HIV/AIDS and sexuality today." Whiteside and Sunter (2000) argue that the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS will only manifest itself over time as the number of infected and dying people accumulates.
First, through illness and eventual death of economically active members of families and communities, productivity will drop, leading to an inability and/or unwillingness to pay for education. Second, as the number of sick and dying increases, scarce funds from bank savings and/or animal wealth (cattle) are often diverted to care. Of course, with the decline in the number of working people, children, who are mostly orphans and/or live in child-headed households, are left to fend for themselves.
Summary
As the demand for a child's work increases, tardiness and repeated absences affect their ability to learn and often lead to dropping out of school. First, it draws on discourse theory as a theoretical framework with poststructuralism as the overarching paradigm, and second, it focuses on the research design and methodology used in the study.
Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
The notion of discourse: A Foucouldian perspective
Discourses are ideas, but also ways of speaking that influence and are influenced by ideas. Sunderland (2004) explains that discourses are not omnipresent, but the fact that they are relatively unbounded means that the same discourse can be produced everywhere in different linguistic guises. Discourses are not about objects; they do not identify objects; (Foucault's discourses are practices that systemically shape the objects they talk about.
Weedon (1987) explains that discourses are conventions that largely determine what can be said, by what speakers and to what kinds of audiences. Discourses shape power relations in social institutions and society as a whole, so that 'power and knowledge relations are an integral part of the production and reproduction of discourses' (Urwin. If discourses shape power relations, individuals are shaped (positioned) by their access to discourses and subject positions , which are available to them in these discourses.
Key concepts in the study
- Power and knowledge
- Silences
- Teacher identity
- Othering
Power refers to aspects in which relationships are asymmetrical, with one person able to control the other. On the other hand, a sociological and socio-cultural approach (for example, a neo-Marxist perspective) would seek to understand teacher identity formation in terms of agency. Aitchison (2000) argues that the creation of the "other" requires the creation of the "same", the latter being given greater status and power.
On the other hand, the dominant group asserts its perspective and experience of social life on the oppressed group as if these are universal. Wodak (1997) argues that the other is constituted as a mirror image of various problematic aspects of the self, such as conflictual socialization processes. The discourses of the other seem to have two different effects: while the other is constituted as homogeneous, the self is constituted as flexible and heterogeneous.
Summary
Illness is often associated with the 'other', be it another race, another class, another ethnic group. Inevitably the place of guilt is also linked to specific ideological, political and social concerns.
Research Methodology and Design
- Context of Study
- Participants in the Study
- Research Methodology
- Methods of Data Production .1 Focus group interviews
- Research Process
- Data Analysis
- Ethical Issues
- Limitations in the study
- Summary
Equally important, however, De Vos (2002) states that there is a larger process of communication that connects the worlds of the researcher and the participants. Participants become co-researchers in the study, whose knowledge of the community they serve is valued for meaning. At the beginning of the focus group interviews, the participants were introduced and informed about the ranking exercise (Appendix A).
A key feature of the barrier ranking was the cooperative and cooperative nature of the participants. Ethical issues thus arise, not only in the context of the research process, but also from the nature of the disease itself. Given the context and sensitivity of the study, informed consent was obtained from the participants and limitations of the study were discussed.
Teacher Constructions of Barriers to Basic Education: Interrogating Dominant Discourses
- Introduction
- Discourse of detachment
- Silences
- Difference as deficit
- Normalisation discourse
- Discourse of caring
They are considered the dominant social group, while members of the community they serve do not enjoy the same social status and are considered to be inferior. The teachers' inability to empathize with the community they serve can be seen in their eagerness to go home at the end of the week. The teachers in the study do not feel a sense of belonging to the place they work.
We do not know the students affected by AIDS and those who are infected. Wodak (1997) argues that there is a need to rethink the discourses of the other that produce two homogenous images. Even if you can arrange a meeting with the parents, they do not come to the school's general assembly.
Conclusion
Compilation of promising approaches in HIV/AIDS and education in sub-Saharan Africa: What works, why and how. Teachers, Pedagogical Discourse and HIV/AIDS: Issues and Challenges Facing Teachers in Pedagogical Endeavors. The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa: A synthesis of findings and recommendations from three country studies.
Keeping the education system healthy: Addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS on education in South Africa. Sense-making frames: Dominant discursive constructions of students and communities of teachers in relation to HIV/AIDS. Positive outcomes: The chances of contracting HIV/AIDS during the school year in the Eastern Cape.
