Reconsidering Educational Aspects Related to Children in the HIV&AIDS Pandemic
“This is a splendid, sensitively written manuscript indicating reflective and dialogical thinking moving in the direction of a dialectical perspective… An important contribution is that the author(s) argue that resilience may be collective in itself, and that this idea remained under-explored.” -Marie Wissing, North-West University “Ebersöhn provides the overarching framework for all of the contributors by arguing for the importance of both a bottom-up, crisis management perspective and a top-down, integrative psychosocial perspective. And all of the research contributors reflect in one way or the other on the significance of using existing social institutions – especially schools – to deliver interventions to children that will provide social support, bolster coping skills, and therefore boost resilience. The traditional medical model neglects these aspects of human development, a deficiency made all that much clearer in the context of the pandemic.” -From the Foreword by Peter Salovey, PhD, Yale University What new understandings concerning children and significant others in their life-worlds have become apparent because of the HIV&AIDS pandemic? This innovative book argues that new insights on education and psychosocial aspects surface when research in the realm of HIV&AIDS is viewed through a positive psychology lens. By converging in-depth exploration and description, the book pinpoints vital persons supporting children’s wellbeing, and posits changed roles due to pandemic-related stressors. The significance of different education role-players (children, teachers, caregivers, community-members) is addressed in separate chapters, using pioneering theory and empirical data that are integrated with dynamic case examples, visual data and narratives. Ebersöhn’s edited book emphasises supportive persons and networks as buffers children access to mediate their coping when confronted by HIV&AIDS-related stressors. Throughout, the links between psychosocial support, changed roles and responsibilities, and resilience in the advent of adversity are clearly and thoughtfully demonstrated. A concluding chapter questions why and what happens to children’s wellbeing when society fails to provide supportive networks and services.
