Abstract
Rural schools in South Africa face many social and environmental challenges which impact negatively on learner wellbeing and performance. Given the severity and history of these problems, the situation is unlikely to change in the near future. Yet, schools are supposed to be enabling environments, providing holistic support to learners from communities plagued by severe economic, health and social challenges. A different strategy is clearly needed to promote the health and wellbeing of learners. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) appears to offer a plausible approach to kick start improved, health-promoting responses from within the school. We facilitated a YPAR process with volunteer learners from Grade10 to find out how they could begin to transform their rural school. Using arts-based methods, the learners were successful in raising awareness of the negative effects they were suffering as a result of the poor social-emotional climate in the school, the unsanitary facilities and the lack of opportunities to engage in physical exercise. The actions they took to address these issues were a catalyst for ongoing positive change in the school. The findings add to literature about how YPAR can make schools more enabling spaces.
Highlights
Rural schools in South Africa face many social and environmental challenges which impact negatively on learner wellbeing and performance
We generated data through transcriptions of the audio-recorded weekly meetings of the participants and facilitator, analysis of learner and teacher responses to the visual displays of the photographs and drawings created in cycle one by participants, responses of the School Governing Body (SGB) to the presentation of the policy brief, and the reflections of the first author on other initiatives begun in the school, as recorded in her field diary
The findings of this study indicate that a Youth participatory action research (YPAR) process has the potential to make disempowering and unsupportive school environments more inclusive and health promoting
Summary
Rural schools in South Africa face many social and environmental challenges which impact negatively on learner wellbeing and performance. Using arts-based methods, the learners were successful in raising awareness of the negative effects they were suffering as a result of the poor social-emotional climate in the school, the unsanitary facilities and the lack of opportunities to engage in physical exercise The actions they took to address these issues were a catalyst for ongoing positive change in the school. In the absence of positive intervention by school management and other adults in the social ecologies of the learners, we investigated how vulnerable youth in a specific rural school could take action to create a health promoting and enabling environment. We did this through engaging learners in youth
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