Thesis (MTech (Nursing))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2014. / Recent reports suggest that there has been an alarming increase in the pregnancy rate of young adults especially in the Outjo district, the northwestern part of Namibia. No formal studies have been conducted recently to get a better understanding of this phenomenon, which is of great concern to all social and healthcare stakeholders. According to the annual report of the Outjo hospital 2009/2010, 36% of the pregnancies reported at the hospital were youth still at school (Namibian 2011). Negative health outcomes of early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS (Human immunodeficiency virus infection / Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), threaten the health of these young adults who will become the mature adults and parents of the future.

The phenomenon of teenage pregnancy among school-going youth is on the increase in South Africa, despite the existence of a number of intervention programmes. Although both curricular and co-curricular awareness programmes targeting this phenomenon are currently employed within South African schools, these programmes have patently not met with much success, since the problem remains acute. It was the question why these programmes are not succeeding in alleviating the problem that prompted my interest in undertaking this study. Based on literature that suggests that those programmes that are successful in reaching the youth are designed through participatory processes, rather than being designed by outside experts, my thesis proposes that prevention programmes that are designed and implemented by the youth for the youth may be more successful in helping them to make healthy decisions in terms of their sexual behaviour. This study attempted to engage youth in a participatory way in identifying and exploring their perceptions of teenage pregnancy and using the knowledge thus gained to design, implement and evaluate prevention strategies in their school. The study is informed by social learning theory and adopted a participatory action research (PAR) design, which is located in a critical paradigm. I purposefully recruited twenty-four youths (14 females and 10 males) to participate. The primary research question that guided this study was: “How can peer educators be engaged to create prevention strategies to reduce teenage pregnancy and its impacts?” The following sub-questions were identified from the primary research question: What do learners themselves know feel and experience with regard to the causes and effects of teenage pregnancy How might a participatory methodology help learners to create relevant and contextualised strategies for addressing teenage pregnancy? How can such strategies be implemented in a school system? What recommendations could be made for addressing teenage pregnancy in a contextualised way? The research was conducted in two cycles. In Cycle One, data was generated through two focus group discussions, led by a young researcher from the community to encourage openness and honesty. In addition through snowball sampling, six teenage mothers and two teenage fathers agreed to be interviewed individually. The same questions were asked in the two discussions and the individual interviews, namely: “What do you know, feel and think about teenage pregnancy?” In the first cycle, I responded to my first sub-research question. Interviews, drawings and focus group discussions were used to generate data. Three themes emerged from the data to provide insight into how the youth at the school perceived the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy. The findings from this cycle revealed certain tensions between what youth said they needed and what adults, such as teachers and parents, thought they needed to know. The participating teenagers regarded themselves as sexual beings, while the adults in their sphere of influence preached abstinence, moralised or merely cited the facts, without entering into any discussion of how young people could deal with social pressures and better protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy. The participating youth were clearly aware of how to prevent pregnancy, but the social barriers to using condoms or contraceptive pills were a stumbling block. They possessed knowledge of the potential consequences of risky behaviour, but this did not stop them from engaging in such behaviour. In the second cycle of the research, the participants used the findings of the first cycle to develop prevention messages and strategies to convey these messages to their peers. They used participatory visual methods to accomplish this. The findings from this cycle revealed that a peer education approach helped participants to increase maturity in sexual decision-making, had a positive effect on the learning and acquisition of new skills, and improved critical thinking relating to sexuality. The study also had a positive impact on other learners’ knowledge and the attitudes displayed by both learners and teachers, and also led to improvements in school policies related to sexuality education. It is contended that the study contributed important theoretical and methodological insights. Knowledge generated from the study could make a contribution to the field of sexuality education and how it should be approached in schools, particularly in communities facing social and economic adversity. The methodological contribution of this study provided guidelines and theory on how participatory action research and participatory methods can be implemented in schools to enable youth to influence change in their schools, not only regarding teenage pregnancy, but also other social issues.

Aprendizagem ativa é um grande desafio para os professores, especialmente quando há tantos estímulos a competir com a própria aprendizagem. A questão investigada pelo presente trabalho foi a produção de jogos didáticos em sala de aula como uma ferramenta eficaz no ensino de Biologia e mais especificamente no ensino de tópicos de orientação sexual. A produção de jogos implica em ludicidade e esta é definida nesta dissertação como a utilização de jogos, didáticos ou não, como ferramenta de ensino. Além de avaliar se o desenvolvimento de jogos didáticos, pelos alunos, é um bom recurso metodológico para trabalhar a temática da orientação sexual, estabelece relações entre esse processo criativo e a aprendizagem significativa e substantiva dos conteúdos e questões polêmicas inerentes a este tema transversal. Também foi objetivo criar condições para que o aluno seja um sujeito ativo na construção de sua aprendizagem, alcançando o que é denominado aprendizagem ativa. A pesquisa envolveu duas turmas de segundo ano de ensino médio. Uma turma, o grupo de controle, desenvolveu o conteúdo com o modelo tradicional de aulas expositivas e com exercícios de fixação providenciados pelo professor. O grupo experimental desenvolveu o conteúdo com a estratégia dos jogos didáticos. Os alunos receberam a tarefa de produzir três jogos, respectivamente, sobre o sistema reprodutor, métodos anticoncepcionais e o ciclo menstrual além de jogos sobre as doenças sexualmente transmissíveis. Cada jogo deveria possuir embalagens, folheto de regras, peças e tabuleiro, este quando aplicável e isso foi utilizado como critério avaliativo. Ao todo foram produzidos catorze jogos, divididos em jogos de tabuleiro, jogos de memória, quebracabeças e jogos de cartas. No início da pesquisa foi aplicado um questionário prévio para aferir o nível de conhecimento de cada turma. A turma controle teve médias de acertos maiores que o grupo experimental. No final do trabalho o mesmo teste foi aplicado e os resultados foram melhores no grupo experimental, mostrando um conhecimento maior por parte deste grupo especialmente quanto às questões presentes na mídia como camisinha, doenças sexualmente transmissíveis(DST) e contracepção, demonstrando um possível conhecimento prévio graças ao ensino fundamental e informações de campanhas na mídia. Por sua vez, o grupo experimental apresentou mais acertos no pré-teste nos tópico camisinha e DST. No pós-teste, houve um crescimento quanto as questões mais técnicas, tais como reprodução assexuada, progesterona, FSH, ovulogênese e pílula além disso, o número de acertos tanto no pré-teste quanto no pós-teste foi o mesmo na questão sobre DST. / Active learning is a challenge for teachers, especially when there are many other things to compete with their own learning. The question investigated in this research was about creating and producing games in the classroom as an effective tool in teaching Biology and more specifically in the teaching of sexual orientation topics. This use of games is defined in this dissertation as the use of playing games, educational or not, as a teaching tool. In addition to assessing the development of educational games by students is a good methodological approach to work the issue of sexual orientation, establishing a relationship between the creative process with the significant and substantive learning content and controversial issues inherent in this cross-cutting theme. Another objective was to create conditions to the student to have an active role in the construction of their learning, reaching the kind of learning that is called active learning. The research involved two classes of high school with students from second year. One group, the control group, developed the content with the traditional model of lectures and exercises provided by the teacher. The experimental group developed content with the strategy of educational games. Students had the task of producing three games, respectively, on the reproductive system, contraception and the menstrual cycle as well as games on sexually transmitted diseases. Every game should have packaging, rules, pieces and board, when was needed and this was used as a way to evaluate the students. The students produced twelve games, divided into board games, memory games, puzzles and card games. Starting the research, a questionnaire was used to assess the level of knowledge of each class. The experimental group had higher average hits the experimental group. After work the same test was applied and the results were better in the experimental group, showing a greater knowledge on the part of this group especially as to these issues in the media as condoms, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and contraception, demonstrating a possible personal sexual experience. In turn, the experimental group had a better score in the pre-test in topic about condoms and STDs. In the post-test, there was an increase in the answers about more technical issues such as reproduction, progesterone, FSH, ovulogenesis, pill and in addition, the number of hits in both of the pre-test and post-test was the same on the issue of STDs.

M.Cur. / HIV and AIDS education as a prevention strategy is priority number one in the National Strategic Plan for South Africa. Prevention of illnesses is also an integral part of primary health care (Department of Health, 2007: 10). There are different role players offering age-appropriate HIV and AIDS education to primary school learners, such as educators (within the Life Orientation programme), school health nurses (as part of health promotion) and non-governmental organisation (NGO) peer educators who visit schools per invitation or as part of their programme. Knowledge of collaboration amongst different role payers is necessary in order to pool the complementary strengths and maximise the positive impact of education on adolescents’ sexual behaviour. The design used in this research is quantitative and descriptive in nature. The respondents were clustered according to categories, namely school health nurses, primary school educators and NGO peer educators. As school health nurses (n=8) and peer educators (n=15) constituted a small population, they were all included in the study. Systematic random sampling was used to select respondents from the population of educators (N=75: n=42). A developed questionnaire was distributed to the consenting respondents who met the inclusion criteria. A checklist was also developed to review policies and guidelines used as a framework for providing HIV and AIDS education to learners by role players. A pilot study was conducted. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS14.0) for Windows was used to analyse the data.

It is the purpose of this study to attempt to arrive at the underlying causes of inadequacy in sex education and to recommend a proposed unit of sex instruction correcting the obstacles for the need of a particular age group.

Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is rapidly spreading in the whole world and many adolescents start relationships at a younger age without knowing the danger of the sexually transmitted diseases. Parents should involve themselves in imparting knowledge about HIV/AIDS related information. It is imperative that parents and adolescents should have that relationship of discussing about the dangers of HIV/ AIDS. Adolescents should be taught about the importance of relationships and how to protect themselves against the dreaded disease. The research took the form of a qualitative interpretive case study focusing on a study sample of twenty parents and twelve members of a focus group. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations. The study examined the hidden issues or underlying the involvement of parents in imparting HIV/AIDS related information to their adolescents. The study revealed that many parents are aware of the pandemic and they felt it is imperative to discuss with their adolescents. Family life education is very much important even if their adolescents are taught about the HIV/AIDS related information at schools. Government is also involved in ensuring that there are preventative measures against the killer disease. This should be a collective effort by both the parents and teachers. The study further recommends the establishment of a library in order to enhance the literacy levels of parents and educators. It will be very much significant to educate or train the trainers in order to educate even our future generation. HIV/AIDS is incurable, therefore, it is imperative for the Department of education to ensure the literacy levels so that even the department of Health contributes its information to inform everybody about the danger of incurable diseases more specifically HIV/AIDS.

Between the years 1910-1916, the Vancouver Medical Association was responsible for designing a sex education program for the British Columbia Public School System. Through the course of the committee's work, the Vancouver Medical Association Sex Hygiene Committee (VMASHC) familiarised themselves with the teachings of the Sex Hygiene movement. The program which they recommend for implementation can be seen as representative of the second stage of North American sex education which advocated the teaching of sex education from the standpoint of biology. The VMASHC can be seen as a pioneer in the effort to teach sex education within Canadian schooling. Considerable time is spent contextualizing and explaining the impetus for the creating the first sex education program in British Columbia. The historical conditions and constraints involved in the birth of sex education are considered. It is argued that the social and political climate of early Vancouver played a direct role in influencing the VMASHC's final creation of what they called "a new line" of sex education in B.C. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

M.A. / This study was conducted at Mankweng District in Limpopo Province initially known as Northern Province. The study was undertaken to explore the nature of the resources for school going teenage mothers and to address the gap in identifying that. The study used a quantitative research design, with fourty respondents. Respondents were 10 school going teenage mothers; 10 parents of school going teenage mothers, 10 social workers and 10 teachers. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on socio-economic factors, contraceptive knowledge, sex education, the utilization of human and non human resources and services offered by different practitioners. The results confirmed that various practitioners did not work as a system in addressing the problem of teenage mothers. It also presented focus on lack of communication between parents and teenagers regarding sexuality education. Most of the teenage mothers were not utilizing the existing non human resources. Both of these conclusions pose critical challenges for health promoters. / Dr. E. Oliphant Prof. W.A. Mitchell

D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Family communication has the potential to affect a variety of youth behavioral outcomes including adolescent sexual risk behavior. Within chapter 1, I present past literature on adolescent sexual risk behaviors, family communication patterns, and the gaps associated with those areas. In chapter 2, I review previous literature on adolescent sexual risk behavior, parent-child communication and family communication patterns. In chapter 3, I present the method which includes a description of the participants, procedures, measures, and data analysis used. In Chapter 4, I present the results of the study. According to the results of the study, father-child communication is not a better predictor of adolescent sexual risk behavior. A higher quantity of parent-child communication does not lead to less adolescent sexual risk behavior. Participants with a pluralistic family type do significantly differ from laissez-faire and protective family types in regards to levels of parent-child communication. Participants with a consensual family type do have significantly higher levels of parent-child communication in comparison to laissez-faire family types, but not protective family types. Finally, in chapter 5, I present the discussion with a review of previous research (consistent or inconsistent with the current findings), limitations and conclusions for the current study.