Exploring and changing Grade 11 learners’ hegemonic narratives about HIV and AIDS using art-based methods

Abstract

HIV and AIDS education in South Africa has been included in Life Orientation (LO) content for over a decade now. The outcomes mostly focus on prevention education and support for those who are HIV infected and affected. However, research indicates that learners still hold negative and simplistic hegemonic narratives about HIV and AIDS which fail to reflect the complex, intersectional nature of the pandemic. In addition, literature also reveals that HIV education often does not engage learners, as it does not relate to their lived experiences. The challenge is thus twofold: first, to use LO teaching strategies that foster self-reflective, critical participation that make the learning content relevant to participants' lives and enable them to speak about difficult issues; second, there is a need to disrupt the rigid, simplistic and stigmatised thinking about HIV among youth so that they begin to understand HIV from an intersectional, socio-structural perspective rather than a biomedical perspective which puts the blame on the individual or the disease. The aim of this study was to use art-based methods to explore and change the hegemonic HIV and AIDS narratives of the Grade 11 learners in my LO class in a traditional KZN village school. Informed by a transformative research paradigm, I used an action research design and art-based methods to enable participants to be actively involved in changing their negative frames of reference to more inclusive perspectives. I worked with 10 Grade 11 learners between the ages of 17 to 21. The main research question was as follows: How can art-based methods be used to explore and change the hegemonic HIV and AIDS narratives of Grade 11 learners in a traditional KZN village school to facilitate an intersectional understanding of HIV and AIDS? The study was divided into two cycles. In Cycle One, participants made drawings and wrote short narratives that reflected their perspectives of HIV and AIDS at the time. The analysis revealed that participants expressed gendered narratives, were influenced by patriarchal cultural narratives, and that stigma and discrimination related to HIV were still rife in the community. The findings were critically discussed in class, where I used the principles of transformative learning theory to disrupt the narratives of the participating learners and help them to construct more inclusive and less stigmatising perceptions of HIV and HIV-positive people. In Cycle Two, participants made storyboards that reflected positive alternatives of the narratives they presented in the first cycle. Their narratives in this cycle were more nuanced and reflected an intersectional view of female vulnerability. Their storyboards countered the gendered narrative of HIV and reflected their belief that education is essential to reduce stigma and change cultural taboos. Participants shared that this study was helpful as they learnt how to be open-minded and more accepting of people infected and affected by HIV. They also experienced the art-based methods as more engaging and interesting and expressed the wish that teachers in other subjects

would also adopt such methods. The findings provide insight into how teachers may use various art-based methods to make their teaching more relevant to the lives of the learners in their specific community. The suggested guidelines may help teachers to develop LO lessons that open up space for the life experiences and local knowledge of learners in rural communities to be heard.