Discursive enactments of the World Health Organization’s policies: Competing cultural models in Tanzanian HIV/AIDS prevention

摘要

In the healthcare arena, language policy-related research has thus far been limited to questions about language access, i.e., whether individuals are supplied with health information in their languages, and whether interpreters for doctor-patient consultations are provided (Martinez 2008; Ngo-Metzger et al. 2003; Partida 2007; Vahabi 2007). This article seeks to expand this body of research by exploring how health policies and health literacies are languaged in HIV/AIDS educational sessions in Tanzania. Placing health literacies within a multiliteracies framework (Cope and Kalantzis 2000), I explore how international public health policies that inform HIV/AIDS education are articulated in educational sessions sponsored by a Tanzanian non-governmental organization (NGO). The article focuses on this NGO’s implementation of the World Health Organization’s Life Skills Education (LSE) curriculum, a set of ten skills that was designed to promote positive behavior change. Since the LSE curriculum is not designed specifically for Tanzanian target populations, it is important to understand how LSE global health literacies are discursively constructed and disseminated, and to investigate if they are deemed culturally appropriate at the local level. Using Gee’s (1990) concept of cultural models, I draw on 4 months of fieldwork to interpret how NGO educators and audience members respond to the information in educational sessions. A close analysis of the interactions reveals tensions between the LSE global cultural model and the local cultural models articulated by the educators and the audiences. Suggestions for language policy and planning in HIV/AIDS education are discussed which incorporate local cultural models into educational practices.