Descripción del contexto de la investigación

My attempt to immerse myself completely in the gender experiences of boys and girls at Pagomo was mediated and restricted by unwritten codes of conduct that regulate relations between adults and adolescents in this rural community. As a result, the participants` perspectives I presented were rather a partial glimpse into their lives. But at the same time my attention was struck by the desire of the boys and girls to challenge these boundaries, when granted the opportunity. Hama (19), whose gender views and performance I later understood to border between modernism and traditionalism indicated

to me the traditionally acceptable conventions of relations between teachers and students…students speak appropriate language to our teachers. We consider them our

elders or parents, so we are not free to speak as we want to them. According to Epprecht

(1998, p. 636), “…dominant African culture in Zimbabwe place a strong taboo upon the

open discussion of sexual matters except in same-age and same-sex groups”. Those boys

I interacted with always positioned me as an adult and teacher cum-researcher. The girls who participated in the research viewed me as a male-adult-teacher-researcher. These statuses I was accorded were important in the researcher-participant relations which followed and impacted on the kinds of data I was able to extract. For example some relations invoked silences while others provoked detailed narratives. No matter how my questions were framed and how closely and penetrating my observations were, I could not break through some of these culturally induced researcher-participant relations. From my knowledge of the community I was aware of their significance. I used that knowledge to negotiate entry into my participants` world. Often, I tried to create a “…least-gendered and least-generational identity” (Pascoe, 2007, p. 181)

Negotiating cultural barriers which constrain and inhibit the research process between the children and elders (Reay, 2001), male and females (Okley, 1981; Schilt & Williams, 2008) was a great challenge in this research. Over and above the known researcher/participant power relations, my task also involved negotiating cultural barriers which were inevitable in this context. I was introduced by the school principal as a former teacher and former principal of a neighboring school and also as a parent from the local community, even though I lived more than twenty kilometers away from the school. Besides my major role as a researcher, it was clear that the students positioned me as an

adult to whom, respect in terms of appropriate speech and conduct was due. During the early days, most student-participants were careful to maintain the hierarchical generational, professional, and gender distance in what they said and did in my presence. Even female teachers took great lengths to cross the gender divide in our conversations and interactions. As the duration in the field increased, productive relations were established as participants gained confidence in me. I assured them that my previous capacity as teacher and principal were not binding and that what they said was going to be treated in confidence. But there were some topics where the language and vocabulary were always pitched to ‘acceptable’ standards of conduct across gender and age lines. These were topics of sexual relationships. Thanks to my ‘insider’ status some of the idioms and metaphors used by students and teachers to describe their experiences could have remained an unresolved enigma. For example expressions, such as…..ndinomuziva- I know her/him, I ndakarara naye-slept with her/him, vakaita zvakaipa-they did bad things” were polite substitutes for sexual acts which was never explicitly talked about. I was able to draw on my own cultural intuition, awareness and ‘insider status’ in order to understand that language (Delgado-Bernal, 1998; Hill-Collins, 1991). Because of this insider status my research as a man among young girls and boys was not a complete impossibility. To understand the participants’ experiences, I drew heavily on my lived experience and knowledge of Pagomo rural community. Thus I acknowledge the extent to which my position as an ‘insider’ in the Pagomo community is implicated in the kinds of data that I generated in this study and in the subsequent analysis.

At times, I was able to establish common ground with students to the extent that they felt comfortable to disclose confidential and sensitive personal experiences. I remember when

in the middle of an interview one participant began to talk about how being a Christian influenced his orientation towards school and sexual relationships and relations with other boys. We delved into which religious denomination he was affiliated to. I mentioned his pastor by name and some popular events held at their church. My knowledge of his pastor church ignited a positive research-participant relationship. So

you know my church and all these people! he exclaimed. I knew that I had struck a point

of connection. It became quite easy to arrange further interview meetings with him. He was very cooperative in answering all the questions I asked. I was able to employ the same strategy with most of the participants. Since I was a local person, I was able to find some kinds of connection with the participants’ experiences outside the school. However, I was careful to let the participant introduce the point of connection rather than me initiating it.