Two years later: preservice teachers' experiences of learning to use participatory visual methods to address the South African AIDS epidemic

Abstract

South Africa continues to struggle with the world's highest HIV rates, and the country's young people are amongst those most severely affected by this epidemic. The education sector, and especially teachers, are situated to be leaders in the national response and can provide emotional support as well as information on gender, sexuality, and HIV and AIDS. This article explores preservice teachers' experiences two years after participating in the Youth as Knowledge Producers (YAKP) research intervention, which provided them with training and practical experience in participatory visual methods for HIV and AIDS education. The article discusses participants' reflections on the methods, the continued influences of YAKP on how they think and approach teaching, and the barriers they experienced in securing further learning in this area. The research concludes that preservice teachers can benefit from short-term training in participatory visual methods for HIV and AIDS education by being exposed to a new pedagogical approach, and suggests further development in the integrated responses of higher education institutions in relation to the preservice teachers' HIV and AIDS education.

A Systematic Review of the Provision of Sexuality Education to Student Teachers in Initial Teacher Education

“…An explicit statement of the epistemological stance adopted and detail of the analytical process were reported in a minority of studies. With regards to educational input studies, data was often collected only after the educational input was completed and thus behavioral change as a result of engagement in the educational input could not be ascertained (e.g., Harrison and Ollis, 2015;MacEntee, 2016;Ollis, 2016). Only one study employed a quasi-experimental design (Gursimsek, 2010), and in this case a purposive sample of student teachers who did not complete the SE course was selected as the control group.…”

“…The research studies reviewed predominantly focused on examining a particular educational input on SE during ITE (Sinkinson, 2009;Vavrus, 2009;Gursimsek, 2010;Harrison and Ollis, 2015;Brown, 2016;MacEntee, 2016;Ollis, 2016) or investigating the SE content covered during ITE (Rodriguez et al, 1997;McKay and Barrett, 1999;Carman et al, 2011). Fewer of the reviewed studies focused on student teachers' skills to teach SE (e.g., Sinkinson, 2009;Vavrus, 2009;Harrison and Ollis, 2015;Goldman and Grimbeek, 2016;MacEntee, 2016) or student teachers' attitudes regarding SE (e.g., Sinkinson and Hughes, 2008;Sinkinson, 2009;Vavrus, 2009;Gursimsek, 2010;Johnson, 2014;Brown, 2016). The findings of the studies were synthesized and categorized in relation to institutional/programmatic level or individual student teacher level.…”

“…Student teachers' responses indicated that external factors made it difficult to independently continue to integrate participatory visual methods and HIV and AIDS topics into their teaching practice experiences in schools. The findings from Johnson (2014), andMacEntee (2016) studies indicate that student teachers' intentions and the realities of teaching subjects and using pedagogical approaches in schools do not always align.…”

“…One study collected data from both student teachers and teacher educators/course providers (Johnson, 2014). The samples size of studies varied from three to 478 participants but were generally small (eight of the studies had fewer than 90 participants : Vavrus, 2009;Carman et al, 2011;Goldman and Coleman, 2013;Johnson, 2014;Harrison and Ollis, 2015;Brown, 2016;MacEntee, 2016;Ollis, 2016).…”

“…Educational input studies were classified as examples of research which assessed a particular course, module, or lecture on SE at ITE. With regards to theoretical approaches that may have informed the educational input studies reviewed, three did not report a specific theoretical approach (Sinkinson, 2009;Gursimsek, 2010;MacEntee, 2016), and the remaining four reported that a critical approach was adopted (Vavrus, 2009;Harrison and Ollis, 2015;Brown, 2016;Ollis, 2016). An overview of study characteristics are presented in Table 5.…”