Comprising a sample of eight schools in three sub-Saharan African countriesKenya, South Africa, and Tanzaniathis compelling study examines the sources, contents, and processes of childrens community-based sexual knowledge, questioning how their awareness falls in line with their schools AIDS education programs. The examination showcases the possibilities of consulting pupils using engaging, interactive, and visual methods, including digital still photography, mini video documentaries, interviews, and observations. These innovative means allow children to speak freely and openly in an environment where discussing sex with adults remains a cultural taboo. The study also sheds fresh light on teachers fears and struggles with a lack of training and limited opportunities for reflection on practice. Engaging in dialogue with conflicting voices of community stakeholders, this valuable discussion reveals them as aware of the dangers faced by children living in a world with AIDS as well as afraid of the many cultural, religious, and moral restraints surrounding sex education in Africa.
Recenzijos
The bundle of evidence from the three countries on the gap between children's knowledge of sexuality and the lack of interaction with that knowledge within the school context is rich and convincing. The findings contribute to work on sexuality education that points at the necessity to understand youth's sexual knowledge. Dr Ariane DeLannoy, Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa This book offers an important contribution towards understanding how children's sexual subjectivity is shaped by contexts of culture, gender, poverty, living environments and schooling. The study offers possibilities to resolve the gap between children's everyday realities on the one hand and teachers' curriculum-based and cultural restraints on the other. Mike Younger, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa and education: AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa;
The role of education; The nature of the response; This project and its aims.
Consulting children and stakeholders through research: Aims and design of the
study; Beginning the study - Ethics, sampling and access; Data-collection
activities and challenges; Learnings and limitations. Country context,
education policies and AIDS education: Kenya; South Africa; Tanzania. A rapid
ethnography of contexts and AIDS education: Rapid ethnography; Homes,
communities and schools; The school as a context for HIV/AIDS education;
Reflections on knowledge, power and pedagogy. Young people's in and out of
school sexual knowledges: Methods and theories; Out-of-school sources and
content of sexual knowledges; In-school sources and content of sexual
knowledges; How contexts affect sexual knowledges - A comparison. AIDS
education in the classroom: Perceptions and dilemmas: Pupils' role plays;
Teachers' perceptions of their HIV/AIDS education practice; Community
stakeholders' perceptions of HIV/AIDS education; Reflections on social space.
Dialogues for change; Dialogue - Its importance and process; Dialogue of
actors; Varying discourses in the dialogues; Varying locations of power and
agency; The possibility of change. Improving practice and effecting change: A
summary of findings; Between innocence and exposure/empowerment; Beyond
cultural impediments to learning; Back to Bernstein and consulting pupils.
Dr Sharlene Swartz is a sociologist and researcher at the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council, and a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Commonwealth Education at the University of Cambridge. Professor Arvin Bhana is a psychologist, the Deputy Executive Director at the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council, and an adjunct associate professor in the School of Psychology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
