The Politics of Planning Culturally Relevant AIDS Prevention Education for African-American Women

Abstract

The central purposes of the study were to determine: 1) the extent to which the programs of a community-based AIDS education provider were culturally relevant for African-American women, and 2) what organizational and social factors in the program planning process influence whether these programs are culturally relevant. Using the Cervero and Wilson theoretical framework, a qualitative case study of an AIDS community services agency was conducted using interviews with staff and board members, participant-observations of three programs, and analysis of agency documents. The study showed that, except for a one-hour segment of one program, the overall AIDS education efforts were not culturally relevant for African-American women. Three factors accounted for this lack of cultural relevancy: (a) the organizational image and financing were directed toward the interests of its white gay male leadership, (b) the internal interpretation of the agency's educational mission did not include a focus on African-American women, and (c) the organizational structure did not support substantive representation of the interests of African-American women in regard to programmatic decisions. It is concluded that power relations manifested themselves concretely through these factors in the social and organizational context, which by defining African-American learners as generic entities, produced undifferentiated educational programs.