Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Teachers, in their relationship with children and their families, face challenges \nrelated to cumulative risk, including HIV&AIDS. In this paper we use Sense of \nCoherence to explain why teachers are able to address such barriers by using assets. \nWe explore the way that teachers (N=28) in four South African schools opted to \ntackle the cumulative risk associated with HIV&AIDS, following participation in an \nasset-based intervention (STAR – Supportive Teachers Assets and Resilience). \nData sources include six years’ longitudinal Participatory Reflection and Action \n(PRA) data. Observation-in-the-context-of-interaction data was documented in \nresearch diaries, field notes, visually as photographs and audiovisual recordings. \nInformal conversational interviews, unstructured face-to-face interviews and focus \ngroup interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. In the thematic analysis \nHIV&AIDS-related barriers emerged as a socio-economic challenge that teachers \naddressed by mobilising identified resources. Teachers’ experiences of barriers were \ninterwoven with narratives of confronting barriers by establishing school-based \nsupport structures. This study provides empirical evidence for the theoretical \nsupposition that schools are well placed to function as intersections of care and \nsupport in communities by theorising that teachers’ use of asset-based \ncompetencies results in their experiencing eustress (rather than distress) when \nfaced with HIV&AIDS-related barriers, as they feel equipped to mediate the effects \nof ongoing HIV&AIDS-related risk.
Institution: University of Pretoria
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1497919449