Abstract
AIDS-related stigma is a major contributor to the health and psychosocial well-being of children affected by AIDS. Whilst it is often suggested that AIDS-affected children may be stigmatised by other children, to date no research focuses specifically on child-on-child stigma. Using social representations theory, we explore how Zimbabwean children represent AIDS-affected peers, examining (i) whether or not they stigmatise, (ii) the forms stigma takes, and (iii) the existence of non-stigmatising representations that might serve as resources for stigma-reduction interventions. Our interest in identifying both stigmatising and non-stigmatising representations is informed by a theory of change which accords a central role to community-level debate and dialogue in challenging and reframing stigmatising representations. In late 2008, 50 children (aged 10–12) were asked to “draw a picture of a child whose family has been affected by AIDS in any way”, and to write short stories about their drawings. Thematic analysis of stories and drawings revealed frequent references to stigmatisation of AIDS-affected children – with other children refusing to play with them, generally keeping their distance and bullying them. However children also frequently showed a degree of empathy and respect for AIDS-affected children’s caring roles and for their love and concern for their AIDS-infected parents. We argue that a key strategy for stigma-reduction interventions is to open up social spaces in which group members (in this case children) can identify the diverse and contradictory ways they view a stigmatised out-group, providing opportunities for them to exercise agency in collectively challenging and renegotiating negative representations. Contrary to the common view that drawings enable children to achieve greater emotional expression than written stories, our children’s drawings tended to be comparatively stereotypical and normative. It was in written stories that children most eloquently expressed meanings and emotions, and an awareness of the complexity of the scenarios they portrayed.
Highlights
Children are increasingly targeted in HIV/AIDS programming due to the growing number of HIV positive children and growing recognition of children’s role in responding to the epidemic, as supportive and caring actors (Skovdal, 2010; Skovdal, Ogutu, Aoro, & Campbell, 2009)
We explore how Zimbabwean children represent AIDS-affected peers, in the interests of examining (i) whether or not they stigmatise, (ii) what forms stigma might take, (iii) the existence of non-stigmatising representations that might serve as a resource for stigmareduction interventions
We have found that children’s combined drawings and essays add a useful and more complex dimension to understandings of AIDS stigma amongst children e in a field previously dominated by questionnaires, and by theoretical frameworks that focus on factors driving stigma, which in the process neglect factors that may mitigate AIDS stigma
Summary
Children are increasingly targeted in HIV/AIDS programming due to the growing number of HIV positive children and growing recognition of children’s role in responding to the epidemic, as supportive and caring actors (Skovdal, 2010; Skovdal, Ogutu, Aoro, & Campbell, 2009). We use children’s drawings and stories to investigate their representations of AIDS-affected children. Viewing children as competent social actors, constantly engaged in the construction and reconstruction of the social representations that give meaning to their experience, we aim to Goffman (1963: 13) defines stigma as “an attribute that is significantly discrediting, which in the eyes of society, serves to reduce the person who possesses it”. We draw on Dovidio, Major, and Crocker’s (2003) conceptualisation of stigma as the blend of affective, cognitive and behavioural responses to those bearing ‘discrediting attributes’, constructed within a collectively negotiated body of social knowledge or representational field. We seek to characterise the representational field in which children’s responses to their AIDS-affected peers are negotiated
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