The politics of planning culturally relevant AIDS prevention education forAfrican-American women

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 ar e 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, e xcept for a one-hour segment of one program, the overall AIDS education eff orts were not culturally relevant for African-American women. Three factors accounted for this lack of cultural relevancy: (a) the organizational imag e and financing were directed toward the interests of its white gay male le adership, (b) the internal interpretation of the agency's educational missi on did not include a focus on African-American woman, and (c) the organizat ional structure did not support substantive representation of the interests of African-American women in regard to programmatic decisions. It is concl uded that power relations manifested themselves concretely through these fa ctors in the social and organizational context, which by defining African-A merican learners as generic entities, produced undifferentiated educational programs.