Introduction: The high prevalence of HIV in South Africa was confirmed by Department of Health (2005) which reported an HIV prevalence rate of 40.7 percent amongst antenatal clinic attendees at public facilities in KwaZulu-Natal in 2004. Abstinence is one of the strategies used by many different cultures where young unmarried people are encouraged to abstain from sex until marriage, to prevent young girls from getting pregnant and acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate African rural high school learners' choice of sexual abstinence and to compare abstinent versus non-abstinent African rural high school learners in order to be able to develop tailored educational messages. Abstinence was defined as not having penetrative sex, since this is the accepted definition of abstinence in Zulu culture. Objectives: a) To investigate the prevalence of abstinence from sexual intercourse amongst African rural high school learners, b) To assess demographic, psychosocial, and economic determinants of abstinence from sexual intercourse, c) To make recommendations about abstinence interventions. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in a rural area (Ugu District in southern KwaZulu-Natal). One class of Grade 9 learners, ages 14-20 years, was selected from each often randomly selected rural high schools. An anonymous selfreporting semi-structured questionnaire used the I-Change model to investigate demographic and economic information, attitudes, social influences, self-efficacy and intentions towards sexual abstinence. Chi square and T-tests were used for bivariate analysis and Logistic regression was used to develop a model for abstinence from sexual intercourse. Results: A total of 454 learners participated with a mean age of 16.76 years (SD 1.41) age range 14-20 years. Of the sample 208 (45.8%) were male and 246 (54.2%) female. The majority were Christian (84.6% (n=384)) and of this population, 28.3% (n=127) reported that they had 'ever had sex'. Furthermore, 24.5% (n=91) of learners reported that they were currently sexually active. Fifty six percent (n=252) of learners reported that they abstained from sex. When comparing learners reporting abstinence (n= 252) with those not abstinent (n= 202), abstinent learners were significantly more often females, who had never had sex (p / Thesis (M.Med.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-56).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Kathleen Casey; submitted to the Dept. of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 5, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-219).

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-56).

Student Number: 9408497V Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree for Masters of Arts. / In this research report an analysis of the message of pre-marital sexual abstinence as a strategy for HIV prevention and its implications for development was carried out. The Christian Action Fellowship, a student Christian organization at the University of the Witwatersrand provided a case for the research study. The alternative development paradigm informed my discussion of the message of pre-marital sexual abstinence in relation to development. In particular, it is its emphasis on participatory development and on the fact that development focus should be given to particular localities that I drew from the paradigm. However, the paradigm falls short of capturing the religious dynamics pertaining to local realities. Thus the results of the research study I carried out are meant to contribute to the development of the paradigm by factoring in the religious dimension of local reality in discourse of development. In this study, the religious dimension of local reality was captured in my focus on the message of pre-marital sexual abstinence as advanced within the evangelical faith based movement in South Africa. Furthermore, this research study is meant to contribute to discourse of development by stimulating intellectual reflection on the message of pre-marital sexual abstinence as a strategy of prevention and its implications for development in South Africa. The study demonstrated involvement by the evangelical movement in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The study further demonstrated the existence of particular methods employed to advance the message of pre-marital sexual abstinence as a prevention strategy against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. One such method is the strategy of identification. This method is employed to appeal to the targeted audience when ii presenting a case. Other methods employed are debate and argumentation as well as rhetoric. The deployment of these methods point to a religious construction of an identity that upholds pre-marital sexual abstinence as a lifestyle and a better HIV preventive option to other strategies of prevention. This research study is recommending further work in the areas where HIV prevention interventions and development interventions intersect within the local context (in all its dimensions) of identity construction.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-237).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-237).

The quantitative study focuses on the perceptions of Nigerian adolescent students to HIV/AIDS and their attitudes to prevention methods. From the literature reviewed it was ascertained that adolescent students do have positive and optimistic perceptions of HIV/AIDS, and also adequate knowledge, but this has not translated into positive attitudes to prevention methods. The literature also indicated that peer group pressure, parental control and the mass media are some variables that probably influence adolescents’ sexual behaviour. This researcher developed the ‘Adolescent Students’ Perception of HIV/AIDS and Attitude to Prevention Methods Questionnaire’ to solicit information from the adolescent students. The results were coded and duly analysed. The results from the empirical study indicated that Nigerian adolescent students have positive perceptions regarding HIV/AIDS, as well as positive attitudes to prevention methods. Recommendations were made for curriculum experts, educators and parents based on current research methods. / Psychology of Education / Thesis (D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The quantitative study focuses on the perceptions of Nigerian adolescent students to HIV/AIDS and their attitudes to prevention methods. From the literature reviewed it was ascertained that adolescent students do have positive and optimistic perceptions of HIV/AIDS, and also adequate knowledge, but this has not translated into positive attitudes to prevention methods. The literature also indicated that peer group pressure, parental control and the mass media are some variables that probably influence adolescents’ sexual behaviour. This researcher developed the ‘Adolescent Students’ Perception of HIV/AIDS and Attitude to Prevention Methods Questionnaire’ to solicit information from the adolescent students. The results were coded and duly analysed. The results from the empirical study indicated that Nigerian adolescent students have positive perceptions regarding HIV/AIDS, as well as positive attitudes to prevention methods. Recommendations were made for curriculum experts, educators and parents based on current research methods. / Psychology of Education / Thesis (D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Condom use is promoted as an effective method for prevention and contraception for people who practice or are at risk of practicing high-risk sexual behaviors. According to the UNAIDS (2009) report, condoms are the only resource available to prevent the sexual spread of the HI-Virus; and with regard to family planning, the same report proposes that condoms expand the choices, have no medical side effects, and thus provide dual protection against pregnancy and disease. However, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, condom use has been fiercely debated. The debates on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in schools are not new nor are they uncontested. In Namibia, the HIV and AIDS policy in education does not explain how, when and by whom condoms should be made available to learners. This leaves it to schools to decide on how (and whether) to make condoms available to learners. As a result, individual school‘s choices not only vary, but are mediated by different factors that are not always in the best interest of learners who, as the foregoing discussion suggests, continue to participate in behaviour that, amongst other things, puts them at risk of HIV infection and falling pregnant. Relying on Foucault‘s theory of discourses, this study investigated the dominant discourses that shape learner, teacher, parent religious and traditional leader and traditional healer perspectives, responses, and experiences with regard to the accessibility, availability, and distribution of condoms in school. The study was conducted in nine schools in Kavango Region in Namibia using a mixed methods approach. The study used triangulation in the data collection process through the use of questionnaires where 792 learners participated in this component, and focus group discussions and individual interviews targeting four groups namely, learners, teachers, parents and religious leaders, traditional leaders and traditional healers. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), and findings from the focus group discussions and individual interviews were analyzed identifying themes and patterns and then organizing them into coherent categories with sub-categories. The study revealed that the majority of adult participants opposed the idea of making condoms available in schools; advocating abstinence instead. This was despite evidence on the prevalence of sexual activity amongst youth in the community. Reasons had to do with various competing and hierarchized discourses operating to shape participant beliefs, perspectives, and responses in a highly regulated and surveilled social and cultural context. Put differently, the dominant discourses invoked a particular sexual subject; authorized and legitimated who invoked such a subject; who was and was not allowed to speak on sexual matters; as well as how sexual matters were brought into the public space of schools. Such authorization and legitimation regulated the discursive space in which discussions on sexual health, safe sex, and resources such as condoms were permitted; with negative consequences for the sexual well-being of youth in Kavango Region. The study also highlighted the tension between freedom, choice, and rights, showing how complex in fact is decision to make condoms available in school. On the one hand, teenagers positioned themselves as capable subjects who had the right to exercise choice over their sexual lives. Requesting parent consent was thus viewed as a violation of this right to choose. Such a position displayed authority and agency by learners that was pitted against views amongst adults in this study that positioned youth as having no agency. In their view, youth (a) were still children and thus innocent and pure, (b) ought to abstain, and (c) were difficult to control given the modern context. Adults believed that early sexual involvement by learners did not result from lack of vigilance and control on their part, but rather from exposure to modern social mores. The study concluded that (a) schools remain difficult spaces not only for mediating discussions of sex and sexuality, but also for providing resources to mitigate sexual risk amongst leaners, (b) in highly regulated societies, dominant religious discourses are produced and reproduced in and through existing institutions such as family, church, and schools; highlighting how these serve to normalize beliefs and perspectives, (c) the dominant discourses shaping communities in which schools find themselves remain inconsistent with school discourses that are shaped by modernist conceptions of childhood and youth, and (b) adult choices to sanction and obstruct schools from making condoms available (and in the case of teachers, not accessible and distributable) put the very children at risk that they propose to be protecting.