Teachers’ subjectivities and emotionality in HIV/AIDS teaching

Abstract

Schools play a significant role in conveying essential knowledge, skills and attitudes about HIV and AIDS to millions of learners, and are therefore at the forefront of addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This has resulted in a shift in HIV/AIDS research to focus on the crucial role of teachers in HIV prevention. This paper explores the influence of teachers’ subjectivities and emotionality on their teaching about HIV/AIDS. The paper draws on qualitative, narrative data gathered from five teachers teaching in a midlands town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It finds that teachers’ subject positions play a significant role in presenting compassionate, supportive and knowledgeable subjectivities in the classroom; and that their positive and negative emotions pivotally influence their teaching about HIV/AIDS. We argue that it is vital to consider how teachers position themselves, as this is intricately linked with their teaching about HIV/AIDS, and we draw attention to teaching about HIV/AIDS as an emotional practice.

Keywords: emotional geographies, HIV prevention, narrative, stories, subject positions