HIV/AIDS Education in Butare-ville Secondary Schools (Rwanda): Analyzing Pedagogic Discourse Using a Bernsteinian Framework

Abstract

This article presents three case studies of how HIV/AIDS education is being organized and taught in Rwanda. It analyses what teachers were doing in 2005 through classroom teaching to safeguard young people from HIV/AIDS. A pedagogic framework is introduced and used as an analytical device that provides a coherent educational language of description for exploring HIV/AIDS education in pedagogic terms, enabling comparative work across classrooms, schools, districts, provinces and countries. Ten pedagogic variables across the three classrooms are analyzed. The findings point to a clash between the pedagogic style employed by the teachers and a pedagogy needed for engaging with life style changing behaviour demanded by HIV/AIDS education.

Keywords:

• HIV/AIDS education
• Rwanda
• Bernsteinian framework
• classification
• framing
• coding instrument
• pedagogic practice