M.Ed. / The importance of teaching guidance in the life orientation learning area, particularly in four primary schools in an informal settlement of Daveyton in the Ekurhuleni District cannot be over-emphasised. The researcher believes that learner achievements and success depend on the balance between educator’s experience, knowledge and consistent training, including the use of appropriate and relevant skills to impart knowledge to the learners. In order to achieve the intended objectives, schools require well-trained and qualified life orientation educators to execute this monumental task with great insight, skill and passion. This study focuses on the lived experiences of educators who are teaching guidance in life orientation in Grade Eight in four primary and informal settlement schools in Daveyton, in schools with predominantly black African learners. Different situations and problems are encountered by learners in Grade Eight in primary and informal settlement schools. Learners are quite often unable to manage these issues in their day-to-day living. Under such circumstances the principal, the school management team and class educators are often obliged to intervene almost on a daily basis. As a consequence the smooth delivery of the entire curriculum is often disrupted. Research has shown that the high rate of school leavers in South Africa nationally, from Grade Eight to Grade Twelve reveals that learners are not taught enough knowledge and skills in teaching guidance life orientation learning area. As a result they do not complete senior primary and secondary school, and they drop out of school with life skills which are inadequate to face the demands of life. This qualitative study was conducted in an attempt to answer the research question: What are the lived experiences of educators who teach guidance in life orientation in four primary schools in informal settlements schools in Daveyton at the Ekurhuleni District Schools? The data was collected through in-depth interviews. They were audiotaped and transcribed.

D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Through quality education for all, learners will be able to reach their full potential and will be able to “meaningfully contribute to and participate in that society throughout their lives” (Department of Education, 1997, p.11). To facilitate this process, Life Orientation (LO) has been introduced as a compulsory subject in grades 8 to 12 and, according to the National Curriculum Statement, it will be “guiding learners to develop their full potential in all spheres of life (i.e. holistic development)”, and focusing on “skills that empower learners to relate positively and make a contribution to family, community and society life in South Africa” (Department of Education, 2003, p.19). This implies that those responsible for teaching this subject would require specific qualities and characteristics, as they face many challenges in terms of what learners bring to school, such as the effects of violence, HIV, abuse, divorce, poverty and teenage pregnancy. The expectations of the learning outcomes are high, and as yet little is known about the experience of LO within schools. This research therefore aimed to explore the learners’ lived experiences of LO within secondary schools in Gauteng, in order to understand their perspectives of LO and LO teachers in the first phase, so that intervention strategies could be developed in the second phase to enhance its implementation. The research utilised a qualitative paradigm and included a literature review, focus group interviews with six to eight learners in each grade of four secondary schools, five individual interviews with learners, four individual interviews with LO teachers, and open-ended questionnaires completed by one class in each grade in secondary school. Data analysis was deductive and themes identified focused on the relevancy of LO, the attitude to LO, the acquisition of life skills, LO teachers and their teaching methods, and the LO needs of learners. Several gaps were identified between learners’ experiences and the learning outcomes of LO. Intervention strategies, based on the findings of the study in phase one, were developed in phase two in order to address these gaps, to further develop LO as a learning area, and to facilitate the acquisition of life skills by secondary school learners. The overall principles of the intervention programme focused on improving the practical applicability of LO for learners, making it more relevant to adolescents, linking it to the community, assisting with the necessary teacher selection criteria and teaching qualities, and highlighting the necessity for more health promotion in schools.

Thesis (DPhil (Social Work))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Social Work / unrestricted

M.A. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The compulsory subject Life Orientation in the school curriculum serves a central role in the socialization of learners into the constitutional imperative of non-discriminatory and democratic values as evidenced by the specific subject aims contained in the CAPS statement. Given the dearth of knowledge in the area of sexuality and the formation of sexual identity through curriculum materials, and framed by the sociological view that sexuality and sexual identity is a social construction, the aim of this study was to investigate the representation/construction of sexualities and sexual identities in a sample of Grade 10 Life Orientation textbooks. The study is informed by critical discourse theory in conjunction with queer theory and examines the vocabulary, grammar and textual structures of language, to expose how representations of sexuality implicitly and explicitly function to a construct and transmit dominant form of sexual identity. A selection of the content of three Life Orientation textbooks was analysed in terms of coverage given to LGBT sexualities and heterosexualities, using a quantitative research approach. The context and quality of those representations was also interrogated using qualitative methods including thematic content analysis and a queer critical discourse analysis to examine the discursive construction of those representations. A standard hegemonic notion of heterosexuality appears to be the all-pervasive and unexamined norm in the Life Orientation textbooks whereas LGBT identities, as revealed by a content and thematic analysis, are virtually invisible. Generally it would appear that Life Orientation textbooks transmit a dominant notion of heterosexuality as the norm, arising out of a common-sense understanding of sexuality which naturalizes a form of heterosexuality that privileges male desire and subordinates women. These underlying ideological meanings are revealed through an examination of the experiential, relational and expressive value of the language such as the lexicalization (connotations and denotations), overlexicalization, classificatory schemes, euphemism and register. Grammatical features for instance active and passive voice, nominalization, modality and the use of logical connectors also serve to bolster a heterosexual sexuality in the Life Orientation textbooks. Frequently, the stated intention of the writers to challenge stereotypes and prejudice would appear to be contradicted or betrayed by the language used and illustrations which further reinforce heterosexuality as a universal norm. Where LGBT identities are mentioned it is usually in the context of human rights, abuse, violation, pathology and emotional disorder.

In this research I explore the attitudes and experiences of teachers and students towards Life Orientation. A case study method was employed based on a co-educational state school in Eldorado Park, South Johannesburg. The study sample was Grade 11 students and their Life Orientation teachers and the research was undertaken using semi-structured interviews of both the students and the teachers as well as classroom observations. The data were analysed using a Thematic Content Analysis. The research found that interactions in Life Orientation classes are influenced by the students’ gender, race and sexual experience which all contributed to a particular set of power relations. Despite this, many of the students found Life Orientation beneficial and the limitations of the classroom interactions could be circumvented if the students entered what Goffman terms the ‘backstage’ of the lesson and spoke to the teacher individually. The success of the backstage interactions depended on the willingness of the students to enter the backstage and the openness of the teacher to deal with their issues. The research found that Life Orientation can be a successful platform for the counselling of young adults, but not in the formal, established structures of the classroom. However, it also found that the teachers did not receive enough support to effectively deal with all the students’ issues. Furthermore, it found that Life Orientation was not able to instigate wider social change.

HIV/AIDS has probably become the most dreadful of all diseases, as no other disease has managed to threaten civilization as HIV/AIDS. It is capable of destroying large sections of humanity (Schoub, 1999). South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, while KwaZulu-Natal is the worst affected province in this country (Kaufmann, 2004). There is a high incidence of HIV infection that is reported in younger people between the ages of 15 to 29 years, which suggests that many were infected in their teens. These statistics underline the central position that young people play in South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mandela (2005)2 states that in confronting the severe threat of HIV/AIDS, fellow South Africans have to jointly take responsibility to save this nation. The experiences in other countries have taught us that HIV infection can be prevented by investing in information and lifeskills development for the youth. This study focuses on the implementation of the National HIV/AIDS policy and HIV/AIDS and Lifeskills intervention programme at a public primary school in the South Durban region in KwaZulu-Natal. It examines: • The perceptions of the Life Orientation (LO) educators towards the HIV/AIDS policy and intervention programme. • The impact that the intervention programme has had on learner awareness and knowledge of the epidemic. The population consisted of 5 Life Orientation educators and 30 grade 7 learners. Information and data was gathered by qualitative methods viz: the use of semi-structured and focus group interviews. Some of the findings that emerged from the study suggest that: • The National HIV/AIDS policy and intervention programme is being implemented at the school. • The LO educators have a good knowledge and understanding of the contents of the National HIV/AIDS policy. However, training is lacking in the teaching of HIV/AIDS education. • The learners have a fairly sound knowledge about how the virus is transmitted and how it can be prevented. • Learners also have a positive attitude towards those with HIV/AIDS with regards to acceptance, providing assistance, showing them love, and respect and by being supportive. An important challenge faced by the school is to ensure that learners continue to receive salient information and knowledge about the epidemic and that educator's get the necessary training especially with counselling of learners who are infected and affected by the virus. This will help to enhance the quality of the teaching of HIV/AIDS and Life Skills education during the Life Orientation learning area. 2.President Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected Black president of South Africa, cited in the Foreword, in Abdool Karim and Abdool Karim (2005). / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

BABES (Beginning Alcohol and Addictions Basic Education Studies) is a drug and alcohol prevention program designed to provide children with un-biased, non-judgemental information concerning alcohol and drug use. The program includes elements of social skills training and empowers children to make informed decisions.The purpose of this study was three-fold: to study the reliability of the BABES instrument, to investigate the effectiveness of the BABES program by administering the BABES instrument and to determine how children's knowledge levels were affected by the program.One hundred and five children were randomly selected from two local day care centers and from Head Start of Delaware County, Indiana. Consents were obtained for 61 children. Preschoolers from Head Start children and from one of the day care centers completed the Pre-Attitude Assessment Inventory and the BABES test. The Pre-AAI was administered prior to BABES and immediately following the prevention program, whereas the BABES test was given at both of those times and also during a two-week follow-up assessment. Children from the other day care center were utilized to check the reliability of the BABES instrument. They received the BABES test two times.A MANOVA was used to analyze the pre, post-test, and follow-up scores on the BABES test. In addition, difference scores were calculated for the Pre-AAI to determine if a knowledge gain was present, and finally, a Pearson R correlation was conducted to determine the test-retest reliability of the BABES instrument.The results showed that the BABES instrument appears to be a fairly reliable instrument and that the children participating in BABES learned more AOD related concepts as presented in BABES than those children who were not exposed to the prevention program. However, children in the experimental group also experienced a negative knowledge gain of different types and/or behaviors associated with AODs. / Institute for Wellness

In South Africa, many health and social problems such as HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, truancy and violence are constantly on the increase. Measures to combat these problems have until now proved unsuccessful. As a result the social functioning of young people become detrimentally affected. Therefore it is necessary to find new ways of preventing these pathological phenomena, since the future demography of the country depends on the physical, psychological, emotional and cognitive aspects of the present generation. The study was undertaken to assess life-skills education at schools. The researcher felt that it is important because inadequate life-skills education make children vulnerable to social pathologies. The major tools used for data collection were questionnaires and literature reviews. A sample of 43 schools was drawn in the North-West and Mpumalanga Provinces. The findings revealed that the schools and parents do not prepare children for life. That is schools do not offer Life-Skills education or the time spent on Life Skills education is minimal and educators are insufficiently equipped to offer Life-Skills education programmes. It is also found that children receive their sex education from their peers. This shows that parents do not play their role with regard to the proper socialisation of children. The study suggests that life-skills education programmes and more in-service training be organised for educators so that they can offer effective Life-Skills education to learners. Finally, the study submits that, to be successful, prevention should focus on comprehensive team approach. Prevention is not a limited function of educators, social workers or health professionals, but it can be provided in a concerted effort by all these professionals, parents as well as the community. Through this, the increase of health and social problems can be minimised among young people. / (M. SWK.) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2003

School-based sexuality education has been the subject of research in the social sciences and pedagogical spheres globally. In South Africa, growing interest among social scientists in the topic, were ignited by the introduction of sexuality education as a compulsory part of Life Orientation (LO) by the late 1990s. However, the implementation of LO has been problematic. Reviewed literature in the current study, reveals how the dominance of the heterosex discourse is foregrounded in LO content on gender and sexuality. The current study was aimed at examining the construction of gendered relationships in LO textbooks. The study sampled LO textbooks for Grades 10-12, learners in these grades are between the mean ages 16-18 years. This group is the target group, because they are legally afforded the right to consent to sexual activity with peers, within the same age bracket. Conducted from a social constructionist perspective, the current study employed qualitative methods of inquiry (textual analysis). Against the backdrop of heterosexuality as norm, it was the aim of the current study to understand the subject positions made available for female learners to construct themselves, within the discursive spaces in LO content. Findings suggest that two discourses namely: the heterosex discourse and the discourse of danger and disease, dominate in LO content on gender and sexuality. This leads to the construction of gendered relationships a s inherently heterosexual, leading to the marginalisation of relationships that fall outside of the norm. The female learner is positioned as a passive-victim, incapable of exercising sexual agency, while young men are positioned as inherently more powerful members of the intimate relationships or dangerous sexual predators. In the discourse of danger and disease, she is also positioned as a potential victim but the focus is on equipping her with skills, in a way which positioned her as an active-resistor in refusing sexual activity; and being in control of decision-making on issues of safety in relationships. The implications of these contradictions, is that they focus on the individual and disallow her taking up of sexual agency, and disregard the context in which she has to do so.