Teacher Identity and the Challenges in Teaching about HIV/AIDS: A South African Perspective Jean Baxen Senior Lecturer University of Cape Town A Presentation at the College of Education, Kentucky University Tuesday, 18 October 2005

Format of Presentation  The study  Practices shaping teachers understanding, experiences and responses to HIV/AIDS  What happens in classrooms  Doing Teaching, Doing Identity

Rationale 1  Schools as ‘natural’ repositories for teaching HIV/AIDS and sexuality Largest single site where youth can be reached Large numbers of children remain in schools at least till 5 th Grade High correlation between schooling and delayed sexual debut Known entity: practices, rituals, rules and regulations Kelly, 2000; Coombe, 2000; Galant & Maticka-Tyndale, 2003

Rationale 2  Research Agenda Paucity in research about what happens in classrooms Nature of questions posed Epistemic origins of the research

Practices shaping teachers understanding, experiences and responses to HIV/AIDS  Material Conditions  Social & Cultural Practices  Discourses and Institutions  Teaching as a Field of Practice

Some Material Conditions  High incidences of HIV/AIDS amongst heterosexual communities  Poverty, unemployment and HIV/AIDS  Morbidity and Mortality  Conditions in Provinces, Communities and Schools

Some Social and Cultural Practices Early Experiences Familial Structures and Parenting Fertility and Early Motherhood Family Discipline and Perceived Promiscuity Conceptions and Experiences of Marriage Marital status, religion and anxiety Teaching and ‘Becoming Somebody” Status and Mobility Community Perspectives and Responses to HIV/AIDS Who is vulnerable? Myths and Misconceptions Denial and Stigma

Discourses and Institutions The Politics of HIV/AIDS Competing discourses in the media, president’s stance, Africanization of HIV/AIDS Discourses on Sexuality Religious, Medical and Sexology Naturalist conception of sexuality A biologized body Link between sex and gender Discourses on Disease Moral Health and Medical Research about HIV/AIDS Epistemic and Methodological Frameworks

Theoretical Framework Understanding Teaching as a field of Practice Pierre Bourdieu Subjects act as agents in the construction, modification, and transformation of society, social practices, and institutions. Concept of field Anthony Giddens Structures are rules and resources people draw from to act in their daily lives Social Systems are the regularized practices firmly embedded in time-space Duality of Structure Judith Butler Beyond Reflexivity, towards performativity Teaching as performative: Doing teaching

Teaching as a field of Practice Typologized Teacher Enactments  Repetition  Rhetorical Discourse  Style of Language  Procedural trajectory of the lesson  Reliance on the official text as authoritative  Discipline and time on task  Invoking the official purpose

Content as Discursive Space  Bounded Discourse Assessment and Examination Task Sequencing The official authoritative text  Frame the discourse Distantiation Adherence to a code of teacher behavior  Normalize the Private Naturalize and normalize the body Non-sexed, objectified body: emphasizing its physical functions

What is happening in classrooms?  Students temporarily rupture and insert a different discourse thus providing opportunity for three things A change in student-teacher relationship Shift in teacher identity A different discourse about sexuality and HIV in classrooms-one closer to children’s reality  Discomfort by teacher produces teacherly behavior that re-inscribes normalised conceptions of what a teacher is and what he/she does

Teacher Identity and performativity What are the ruptures, shifts, inscriptions Not about silences and inability to speak- its about speaking from a position and often subverting the official Reinscriptions of the normalised Teacherliness becomes an end in itself and as such the self is somehow preserved