Browsing by Author "Namazzi, Elizabeth"

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Closing the HIV and AIDS “Information Gap” Between Children and Parents: An Exploration of Makerspaces in a Ugandan Primary School
(MDPI, 2020-07-23) Kendrick, Maureen; Namazzi, Elizabeth; Becker-Zayas, Ava; Tibwamulala, Nancy Esther
In this study, we address the research question: “How might child-created billboards about HIV and AIDS help facilitate more open discussions between parents and children?” The premise of our study is that there may be considerable potential for using multimodal forms of representation in makerspaces with young children to create more open dialogue with parents about culturally sensitive information. Drawing on multimodal literacies and visual methodologies, we designed a makerspace in a grade 5 classroom (with students aged 9–10) in a Ugandan residential primary school. Our makerspace included soliciting students’ knowledge about HIV and AIDS as part of a class discussion focused on billboards in the local community and providing art materials for students to explore their understandings of HIV and AIDS through the creation of billboards as public service announcements. Parents were engaged in the work as audience members during a public exhibition at the school. Data sources include the billboards as artifacts, observations within the makerspace, and interviews with parents and children following the public exhibition. The findings show that, for parents and children, the billboards enhanced communication; new understandings about HIV and AIDS were gained; and real-life concerns about HIV and AIDS were made more visible. Although these more open conversations may depend to some degree on family relationships more broadly, we see great potential for makerspaces to serve as a starting point for closing the HIV and AIDS information gap between children and parents.
Multilingual cultural resources in child-headed families in Uganda
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2014) Namazzi, Elizabeth; Kendrick, E. Maureen
This article reports on a study focusing on the use of multilingual cultural resources in child-headed households (CHHs) in Uganda’s Rakai District. Using funds of knowledge and sociocultural perspectives on children’s learning, we documented through ethnographic observations and interviews how children in four CHHs used multilingual cultural resources at home. Our findings show that children co-construct, re-appropriate and remix stories, songs, riddles and proverbs from their cultural environment in situated ways that are a response to the changing context of their social worlds. The study provides a window onto the unique production and use of multilingual cultural resources in CHHs, and further speaks to the need for educators and policymakers to better understand the critical role of siblings in their own learning of linguistic and cultural knowledge.
Ugandan students' perspectives on the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS:
(The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2015-07) Namazzi, Elizabeth
My study investigated perspectives that underlie Ugandan high school students’ understandings of the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS and how they influenced by cultural practices. I adopted an interpretive case study approach that employed mixed methods, guided by the sociocultural and practice theoretical frameworks. Data were collected on students from seven select schools in central Uganda over 12 weeks. The students participated in the study by completing an adopted HIV/AIDS knowledge questionnaire with a transformed scale from True/False to Likert before and after experiencing HIV/AIDS lesson instructions. The questionnaire served as a stimulus to evocation of the students’ perspectives. These perspectives were extracted from the questionnaire data using Principal Component Analysis. Results revealed five key perspectives: Perceptual and behavioural risks associated with proximity to HIV/AIDS victims; Hygienic practices; Behavioural/practice causes and transmission of HIV/AIDS; Predictive, preventive and transmissive knowledge of HIV/AIDS; and Naïve notions of prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. These perspectives were further interrogated through qualitative methods including classroom observation and focus group interview/discussions. After HIV/AIDS-focused lessons, a similar analysis on the after-lesson questionnaire data also revealed that underlay students’ understandings of the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Three of the pre-lesson perspectives persisted while two (Hygienic practices and Behavioural/practice causes and transmission of HIV/AIDS) collapsed, with two new ones (Taboo-like prescriptions of knowledge of infection) emerging in the after-lesson experience analysis. Also, a realization emerged among the students of the greater risk of HIV/AIDS infection if they subverted the cultural norms. It became noteworthy that the students communicated their understandings metaphorically, which often conveyed unscientific understandings about the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The study’s findings have critical implications for policy and the way curricula and instruction are interpreted and enacted in the classroom.