Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

A key issue in HIV prevention education is addressing the unequal gender power relations (relations between men and women within a particular society) that make many young women more vulnerable to HIV infection. For example, it can be difficult for young women to negotiate condom use with their partner. The importance of teaching gender equity is particularly evident in South Africa, where the HIV prevalence in young women aged 20 to 29 is double that of young men in the same age group. There is however a significant gap in our understanding of how HIV prevention curricula are taught, and how messages related to gender equity are communicated and understood in the everyday context of people's lives. My research, which builds on my professional experience working in South Africa, aims to deepen our understanding of how gender equity is taught, understood and taken-up at a community level. I will conduct a year-long ethnographic study with a South African non-profit organization that develops youth peer education training curricula. The program provides a unique opportunity to explore how adult educators interpret and implement messages as they train peer educators (youth ages 14 to 16 who engage in educational activities with their peers in secondary school settings), as well as how peer educators take-up these messages as they engage with their peers. This research will contribute to our understanding of how we can bring together local and global leadership to promote more equitable gender relations through health education, in this instance to empower young women and young men to protect themselves from a life threatening disease. Furthermore, the research aims to be more broadly applicable to the field of sex education, and will offer Canadian educators a unique opportunity to learn from strategies that promote gender equity and apply these strategies to their own work with Canadian youth.