Browsing by Author "Mutonyi Harriet"

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Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes for HIV/AIDS Among Ugandan Grade 11 Students
(Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 2007) Mutonyi Harriet
This article looks at the importance of student-generated analogies, metaphors, and similes as an entry point into their understandings of HIV/AIDS. In addition, it argues that analogies, metaphors, and similes are good tools for eliciting students’ prior understandings of HIV/AIDS, especially matters relating to sexuality that are often figuratively communicated in many Ugandan cultures. It posits that students’ prior knowledge determines how they respond to messages about HIV/AIDS. The article suggests that in order to prevent vulnerability to HIV/AIDS among Ugandan youth, learning should be viewed as a process of conceptual change so that students become active participants in their own learning process.
Building Scientific Literacy in HIV/AIDS Education: A case study of Uganda
(2007) Mutonyi Harriet; Nielsen Wendy; Nashon Samson
The term scientific literacy is defined differently in different contexts. The term literacy simply refers to the ability for one to read and write, but recent studies in language literacy have extended this definition. New literacy research seeks a redefinition in terms of how skills are used rather than how they are learned. Contemporary perspectives on literacy as a transfer of learned skills into daily life practises capture the understanding of what it means to be scientifically literate. Scientific literacy requires students to be able to use their scientific knowledge independently in the everyday world. Some models for teaching towards scientific literacy have been suggested including inquiry based learning embedded in constructivist epistemologies. The inquiry-based model is posited to be effective at bringing about in-depth understanding of scientific concepts through engaging students’ preconceptions. In order to establish whether directly engaging students’ preconceptions can lead to in-depth understanding of the science of HIV/AIDS, a case study was designed to elucidate students’ prior knowledge. From questionnaires and classroom observations, Ugandan Grade 11 students’ persistent preconceptions were explored in follow-up focus group discussions. The inquiry process was used to engage students with their own perceptions of HIV/AIDS duringthe focus group discussions. Findings suggest that students need to dialogue with each other as they reflect on their beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Dialogue enabled students to challenge their beliefs while making connections between ‘school’ and ‘home’ knowledge.
Cartoon drawing as a means of accessing what students know about HIV/AIDS: an alternative method
(Visual Communication, 2011) Mutonyi Harriet; Kendrick E. Maureen
Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda has involved massive public education campaigns. One of the challenges of these campaigns has always involved the need to simultaneously respect and transcend cultural taboos around direct discussions about sexuality and sexual issues, particularly among youth. Research consistently shows that drawing, as a means of investigating what students know, has the potential to reveal students’ perceptions of given concepts and provides an alternative to predominantly language-based methods. Visual methods, however, have rarely been taken up in research on students’ sexual health and HIV/AIDS knowledge. This interpretive case study examines the use of cartoon drawing as a unique tool for understanding Ugandan secondary students’ conceptions of HIV/ AIDS, particularly concepts that are not directly discussed culturally.
Experiments in Visual Analysis: (Re)positionings of children and youth in relation to Larger Sociocultural Issues
(2007) Kendrick Maureen; Rogers Theresa; Toohey Kelleen; Marshall Elizabeth; Mutonyi Harriet; Hauge Chelsey; Siegel Marjorie; Rowsell Jennifer
One of the most distinctive features of the 21st Century is the dominance of the visual and its relationship to multiple modalities of communication. Human experience is more visual and visualized than ever before (Mirzoeff, 1999). Visual communication is becoming less the domain of specialists, and more and more crucial in the domains of public communication (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996), particularly as dominant modes of communication shift from page to screen (Snyder, 1997). Generating information about children’s and youth’s knowledge, and perceptions of their own lives and learning typically involves language-based modes, which may not build access to the multiple layers and complexities of their knowing. Visual representations have been utilized by researchers in various fields such as psychology and anthropology to learn more about participants’ constructions of their worlds (e.g., Adler, 1982; Diem-Wille, 2001; Koppitz, 1984). Siegel and Panofsky argue literacy studies have taken a semiotic turn: “the unsettled status of the field appears to be a productive moment of experimentation, invention, and problem-posing as researchers design analytic approaches that draw on a range of theoretical frameworks relevant to their research interests, purposes, and questions... analyzing multimodality requires a hybrid approach—a blend or ‘mash-up’ of theories” (2009, p. 99). Similarly, Pahl and Rowsell assert that, in accessing the underlying meanings of multimodal practices, “we need not only to account for the materiality of the texts, that is, the way they look, sound, and feel, but also have an understanding of who made the text, why, where, and when” (2006, p. 2).
Gender Equality, HIV/AIDS, and Marriage:
(Uganda Martyrs University, 2016) Mutonyi Harriet
The overarching goal of this book is to increase our understanding of how marriage impacts the fight against women’s inequality and HIV/AIDS, and how the HIV/AIDS and gender equality discourse is taken up by married teachers in Uganda. Teachers act as role models and spearhead the HIV/AIDS and gender equality campaigns in schools and therefore their positioning impacts how they convey the content to young people. The assumption is that the current HIV/AIDS infection trends and subsequent reports on women’s vulnerability within the marriage, has direct impact on the education of young people on these issues. This book explores the teachers’ lived experiences touching on issues of their conceptions of gender equality, domestic violence, and the applicability of HIV/AIDS and gender equality knowledge in real life situations like marriage. Scholars and educators will find this book full of rich narrative on teachers, their lives, and practice.
Health Literacy, HIV/AIDS, and Gender: a Ugandan Youth Lens
(The University of British Columbia, 2008) Mutonyi Harriet
Youth, the World Bank argues, need to become a constituency for reform indeveloping countries. This case study responds to this challenge by investigatingadolescent students' understanding of the relationship between health literacy, HIV/AIDS,and gender in the context of Uganda. The four questions investigated are: (i) What kind ofhealth literacy, HIV/AIDS, and gender-related information is accessible to Ugandanadolescent secondary school students? (ii) In the students' view, what are the factorscontributing to health and HIV/AIDS related challenges faced by young people in Ugandatoday? (iii) According to these students, what is the impact of the debate on gender equalityin the fight against health epidemics including HIV/AIDS? and (iv) What do these studentsconsider to be the way forward for Uganda to achieve better health and improve lifechances for all? The theoretical framework includes critical pedagogy and indigenousknowledge systems, as well as integrative gender frameworks. Each contributes a differentbut complementary understanding of adolescent students' perspectives on the issues underinvestigation. Data were collected in a qualitative study from January 2005 — May, 2007. The datacorpus includes: student journals, reflective reports, artifacts/documents, life historyinterviews, questionnaires, informal ethnographic conversations, focus group discussionsand critical inquiry discussions. In response to each of the research questions, the majorfindings were as follows: i) The students' understanding of the relationship between healthliteracy, HIV/AIDS, and gender were in part influenced by the media, and in part their ownexperiences. ii) Poverty and peer pressure impact young people's health practices. iii)Young people want gender equality debates to have a focus on marginalized males as well as females. iv) Youth suggest that education, fair trade, and better healthcare services areimportant in the attainment of the "better health for all" goal in Uganda. The study concludes that marginalized groups, especially youth, need opportunitiesto develop a united voice and be active participants in reform processes. Further, newanalysis frameworks are needed to understand the gender/power relations in Uganda.
ICT on the Margins: Lessons for Ugandan Education
(Language and Education, 2007) Mutonyi Harriet; Norton Bonny
In this end piece, we argue that while this special issue shifts debates on the digital divide to address students’ capacity to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for productive social purposes, access to ICT remains a major challenge in countries like Uganda, in which less than 1%of the population has access to the Internet. However, since the case studies address marginalised communities in Australia, Brazil, Greece and South Africa, the findings have relevance to Uganda and other developing countries. Five lessons, in particular, are important for curriculum planning and policy development in Uganda: the need to collect empirical data on ICT access and use; the importance of recognising local differences across rural and urban communities, male and female students; the need to promote professional development of teachers so that they can make effective use of ICT in classrooms; the importance of integrating in and out-of-school digital literacy practices; and the need to consider how global software can best be adapted for local use. We conclude that if ICT is to play its part in achieving Education for All by 2015, there is an urgent need for collaborative partnerships between a wide range of stakeholders at both the local and global level.
Languaging for life: African youth talk back to HIV/AIDS research
(Language Policy, 2008) Norton Bonny; Mutonyi Harriet
In this article, we present a case study, undertaken in Uganda, in which 12 young people debated and critiqued four research articles on HIV/AIDS relevant to Ugandan youth. The rationale for the study was to provide students with the opportunity to respond to health research that had a direct bearing on their lives. It also complements applied linguistics research that has been undertaken in resourcerich countries with adult participants. In our study, we were particularly interested in the extent to which languaging (Swain in Advanced language learning: the contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky. Continuum, London, 2006) was productive for African youth engagement in policy. We argue that this research has relevance for language policy, in the sense that language policy references not only top-down policies such as the medium of instruction in schools, but also language and linguistic practices at grassroots level that have policy implications. Insights from the students, which are supported by a broad range of literature, suggest that the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa have led many communities to rethink traditional customs and social relationships, some of which have exacerbated the spread of the disease. At a more systemic level, the students recognized that gender inequities made both females and males more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, but in significantly different ways; that poverty undermines freedom of choice; and that beliefs and practices perceived to be ‘‘western’’ should be negotiated with care. These insights have important implications for policy with respect to language, health, and education.
Meeting the Challenge of Health Literacy in Rural Uganda: The Critical Role of Women and Local Modes of Communication
(Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 2007) Kendrick Maureen; Mutonyi Harriet
This article seeks to better understand the relation between local and traditional modes of communication and health literacy within the context of a rural West Nile community in Northern Uganda. Drawing on social semiotics (multimodality) and Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival, the focus is on a group of women participating in a grassroots literacy program and their use of local modes of communication to address the endemic problem of malaria in the West Nile region of Uganda. The argument is that women and local modes of communication can serve a critical role in disseminating primary health care information in particular and in community health care development in general. This article also makes a case for adopting a more holistic approach to health literacy promotion; one that brings together local and new modes of communication and knowledge with desperately needed health care services and trained personnel.
Multimodality and English education in Ugandan schools
(English Studies in Africa, 2006) Kendrick Maureen; Jones Shelley; Mutonyi Harriet; Norton Bonny
In all societies children have many layers of representational resources Ia vailable to them. Play, movement, song, drama, language and artistic activity are but some of the modalities by which they learn to make sense of their world (Short, Kauffman and Kahn 160). The concept of multimodal ways of communicating, however, although very much in vogue in literacy studies, is not a new model within the Ugandan communities in which we work. In many parts of Uganda, indigenous knowledge and ways of communicating have been integrated into non-formal learning contexts, particularly in Freirean-based adult literacy programmes such as UPLIFTUganda (Pokorny 10-1 1) and REFLECT (Attwood, Castle and Smythe 137- 158). Within the formal school system, however, teachers are often constrained in their ability to recognize alternative or indigenous modes of representing and communicating knowledge due to a strong emphasis on examinations, teaching to the curriculum and a lack of resources and teacher training, particularly in rural areas.
Perceptual Influence of Ugandan Biology Students’ Understanding of HIV/AIDS
(2010) Mutonyi Harriet; Nashon Samson; Nielsen Wendy S.
In Uganda, curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS has largely depended on public and private media messages about the disease. Media campaigns based on Uganda’s cultural norms of communication are metaphorical, analogical and simile-like. The topic of HIV/AIDS has been introduced into the Senior Three (Grade 11) biology curriculum in Uganda. To what extent do students’ pre-conceptions of the disease, based on these media messages influence students’ development of conceptual understanding of the disease, its transmission and prevention? Of significant importance is the impact the conceptions students have developed from the indirect media messages on classroom instruction on HIV/AIDS. The study is based in a theoretical framework of conceptual change in science learning. An interpretive case study to determine the impact of Ugandan students’ conceptions or perceptions on classroom instruction about HIV/AIDS, involving 160 students aged 15–17, was conducted in four different Ugandan high schools: girls boarding, boys boarding, mixed boarding, and mixed day. Using questionnaires, focus group discussions, recorded biology lessons and informal interviews, students’ preconceptions of HIV/AIDS and how these impact lessons on HIV/AIDS were discerned. These preconceptions fall into four main categories: religious, political, conspiracy and traditional African worldviews. Results of data analysis suggest that students’ prior knowledge is persistent even after biology instructions. This has implications for current teaching approaches, which are mostly teacher-centered in Ugandan schools. A rethinking of the curriculum with the intent of offering science education programs that promote understanding of the science of HIV/AIDS as opposed to what is happening now—insensitivity to misconceptions about the disease—is needed.
Stories, proverbs, and anecdotes as scaffords for learning science concepts.
(2015) Mutonyi Harriet
Few research studies in science education have looked at how stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be used as scaffolds for learning. Stories, proverbs, and anecdotes are cultural tools used in indigenous communities to teach children about their environment. The study draws on Bruner's work and the theory of border crossing to argue that stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be useful tools in the teaching of science concepts. The study uses a qualitative approach to understand how students in a secondary school in Uganda were appropriating stories, proverbs, and anecdotes to explain their understanding on health and HIV-related issues. The data collection methods included interviews, focus group discussions, journaling, and document collection. The major finding is that use of stories, proverbs, and anecdotes drawn from the students' cultural context helps them understand science concepts. The main argument of the article is that cultural tools (stories, proverbs, anecdotes) can be used to scaffold students' learning of scientific concepts. The implications are that stories, proverbs, and anecdotes can be used to help students may not be inclined to science, to enter into the world of science by linking their everyday world to the culture of science.
‘Talk what others think you can’t talk’: HIV/AIDS clubs as peer education in Ugandan schools
(Compare, 2007) Norton Bonny; Mutonyi Harriet
The clubs will do peer education; the clubs will be a forum for affected students to share their experiences. (HIV/AIDS Technical Advisor, Ministry of Education, 4 October 2004) The clubs extend what we do in the communities. We train the leaders so that they can do peer education. (AIDS health official, 2 October 2004) In this article, we make the case that HIV/AIDS clubs in Ugandan schools provide valuable information to students who may not have easy access to health services. As one club motto suggests, the clubs ‘talk what others think you can’t talk’. The innovative peer education methods, which include drama, popular culture and community outreach all have great appeal to youth, and provide unique opportunities for female students to raise gender issues and develop leadership skills. We conclude that innovative adaptation of the Ugandan model may complement other HIV/AIDS educational programmes in Africa and beyond.