Paper Title
HIV and Aids Teaching: Exploring Teacher’s Emotional Geographies and Cultural Complexities
Abstract
Globalstatistics of people living with HIV and new HIV infections is still alarming. Teachers are tasked with the
enormous responsibilityof providing essential knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to curb further new HIV infections.
This studyaimed to explore HIV & AIDS teaching and the cultural complexities that teachers experience when teaching
about HIV & AIDS. The purpose of this study was to explore the significance of teachers’ emotions in HIV & AIDS
teaching and how they address the cultural challenges of teaching sensitive issues related to sexuality and HIV & AIDS. The
study adopted a qualitative, narrative approach and used a purposive sample of five teachers from a Midlands town in the
province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data was generated from scenario analysis, semi-structured interviews and lesson
observations, to construct narratives. Hargreaves’ conceptualisation of five key emotional geographies of teaching such as
moral, socio-cultural, physical, professional and political, was used as the framework to analyse teachers’ emotions and
cultural challenges related to HIV &AIDS teaching. The study found that teachers experienced a range of positive and
negative emotions and that these emotions influence their HIV & AIDS teaching; and that teacher’s emotional geographies
influenced power dynamics and relationships. Findings also highlighted that cultural complexities such as stigma,
discrimination, shame and myths associated with HIV & AIDS influenced teaching about HIV & AIDS. Based on the
findings, the study concluded that it is vital for Departments of Education and Education Specialists to understand and
acknowledge the significance of teachers’ emotional geographies in HIV & AIDS teaching. The study recommended that
teachers need to be developed and equipped with knowledge and skills to address the cultural complexities and tensions and
contradictions in HIV & AIDS teaching; and that these topics should be integrated into the curricula of Higher Education
Teaching Qualifications.
Keywords - HIV and AIDS Teaching, Emotional Geographies, Cultural Complexities, Qualitative Methodology, Narrative
Approach.