Teachers addressing HIV&AIDS-related challenges resourcefully

Abstract

Teachers, in their relationship with children and their families, face challenges related to cumulative risk, including HIV&AIDS. In this paper we use Sense of Coherence to explain why teachers are able to address such barriers by using assets. We explore the way that teachers (N=28) in four South African schools opted to tackle the cumulative risk associated with HIV&AIDS, following participation in an asset-based intervention (STAR – Supportive Teachers Assets and Resilience). Data sources include six years’ longitudinal Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) data. Observation-in-the-context-of-interaction data was documented in research diaries, field notes, visually as photographs and audiovisual recordings. Informal conversational interviews, unstructured face-to-face interviews and focus group interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. In the thematic analysis HIV&AIDS-related barriers emerged as a socio-economic challenge that teachers addressed by mobilising identified resources. Teachers’ experiences of barriers were interwoven with narratives of confronting barriers by establishing school-based support structures. This study provides empirical evidence for the theoretical supposition that schools are well placed to function as intersections of care and support in communities by theorising that teachers’ use of asset-based competencies results in their experiencing eustress (rather than distress) when faced with HIV&AIDS-related barriers, as they feel equipped to mediate the effects of ongoing HIV&AIDS-related risk.