2 research outputs found
“Our culture does not allow that”: Exploring the challenges of sexuality education in rural communities
No full textWithin sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is becoming a greater threat to rural communities due to the high numbers of urban dwellers and migrant labourers who return to their rural villages when they fall ill and due to the lack of information and health services. Previous studies have found a reduced rate of infection among people who have high educational attainment, and thus advocate for education as the vaccine against new HIV infections among the youth. However, very little research has focussed on the delivery of sexuality and HIV&AIDS education in rural classrooms. With teachers positioned at the forefront of the pandemic, especially in rural communities, it is important to understand how teachers experience teaching about sexuality in rural schools. In this paper, I explore the experiences of eight women teachers through focus group discussions. Thematic inductive analysis was used to identify the stumbling blocks within sexuality education classrooms in rural schools. Societal constructions of childhood and nostalgia for past traditional practices were found to be the major challenges to teaching. The findings highlight the need for a sexuality education curriculum that integrates traditional ways of knowing into formal sexuality education in order for it to be effective in reducing further spread of HIV
Rural education and rural realities: The politics and possibilities of rural research in Southern Africa
No full textFrom text: Rurality studies and research emerged from established disciplines such as agricultural sciences (Maat, 2001), agricultural education (Phipps, Osborne, Dyer & Ball, 2007) and human geography (Cloke, Crang & Goodwin, 2004). With regards to the latter, human geography and urbanisation studies (Reader, 2004) developed almost bifocally with the realisation that the sustainability of conurbations and cities needed to be premised on an understanding of sustainable rural livelihoods, beyond the mass agricultural production associated with intensive industrialised agricultural planning, clearing, and planting. Agricultural sciences do not conventionally focus on rural life as a social activity in which the fabric of human relations and community enable (and sometimes disable) sustainable economic agricultural development. In more recent times, food and nutrition security have also shifted in focus from the phenomenon of the urban poor to a realisation that, without richly textured and empowered rural communities, the connection between small- and large-scale agricultural production and food security becomes more attenuated and dispersed. In all of this, education, as a means for developing environmental awareness, addressing societal challenges, and enabling individual and communal aspirations to social mobility and transformation, remains a critical and yet underexplored dimension of rural life, whether based on agricultural or other social activity. As with most issues, there is a history to this
