Using metaphors for integrating HIV and AIDS education in mathematics curriculum in pre‐service teacher education: an exploratory classroom study

Abstract

In adopting the Education White Paper 6. Special Needs Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System of 2001, the South African education system mandates teachers and schools to address the various intersecting factors that act as barriers to learning for all learners. Using drawings and metaphors with a group of pre‐service teachers, this paper focuses on a set of such factors: HIV and AIDS. The exploratory classroom inquiry reported herein explores the following question: what are my beliefs and pre‐service teachers’ beliefs about integrating HIV and AIDS education in the teaching and learning of mathematics? A drawing activity was developed for focus group discussions with seven primary school pre‐service teachers and the author, their mathematics teacher educator. This classroom inquiry involved an analysis of the drawings and the metaphors used to describe the integration of HIV and AIDS education in the mathematics curriculum. By focusing on the metaphors and the discussions that emanated from them, the project aimed to shed light on the beliefs of a group of pre‐service teachers about the possible integration of HIV and AIDS education in mathematics classrooms of young learners. The findings from these suggest varied understandings and beliefs about HIV and AIDS and their place in the mathematics curriculum and some possible strategies for the training of a ‘multiskilled’ teacher in the age of AIDS in pre‐service teacher education programmes.