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The negative consequences of teenage sexual behaviour are issues of concern in Britain and many other western countries. Over one-quarter of British young people are reported to become sexually active prior to the age of 16 and the rate of teenage pregnancy remains one of the highest in Western Europe. Current UK Government policy on sex education highlights the provision of skills for 'safe sex' at school to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. This paper argues that school cannot alone provide sufficient guidance to change teenage sexual behaviour, as school, family, religion, peers and media all have their part to play. Cooperation between schools, young people, their families and communities is crucial to enhance the effectiveness of sex education and to promote positive sexual health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines how out-of-school adolescents from Masaka District in rural southwest Uganda currently receive sexual and reproductive health information and how they would prefer to receive that information. Information adolescents feel they lack falls into three broad categories: sexual and reproductive health issues, the negotiation of sex and sexual relationships, and making the transition to adulthood. The preferred source for information depends on the type of information to be delivered, the overriding principle being that the source must be authoritative in that type of information. Current information sources including family, peers and media are perceived as either flawed or insufficient. Preferable sources fall into three categories based on the type of information provided: accurate sexual and reproductive health information should come from trained community and media-based rather than clinic-based health educators; information about negotiation of good relationships and the negotiation of sex and condom use within relationships should come from an up-skilled traditional source, ssenga (paternal aunt), particularly for young women; and social information about becoming a good adult should come from parents, grandparents, church and community leaders. All information should be positively framed and non-judgemental. Centrally coordinated community health promotions delivered by trained community-based health educators, ssenga and parents, guided and supported by existing radio and print media, are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the response to the sex education film Growing Up, made in 1971 by Dr Martin Cole, which used a combination of animation and live action to offer a frank and uncompromising account of sexual reproduction. As part of this, both male and female masturbation and an unsimulated act of male-female coitus featured in the film. Cole was widely denounced both by religious conservatives including the members of the Nationwide Festival of Light and by others involved in sex education. The former objected to what they took to be his promotion of precocious and promiscuous sex, and the latter charged him with setting back the cause of 'responsible' sex education by years or decades. However, evidence from various schools in which Growing Up was seen suggests that it was apparently well received by pupils. But an ad hoc alliance of religious conservatives and 'responsible' sex educators ensured that Growing Up was not widely distributed, and a tactic agreement of sorts has arisen that such explicit sexual imagery will not be featured in school sex education materials in the United Kingdom. Sources include selected media reports/discussions, parliamentary debates, letters sent to Cole, teachers' comments and an interview conducted in 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the findings of a three-year study into pre-service (student) teachers' experiences of and beliefs about sexuality education in New Zealand schools. It reports on participants' own memories of school sexuality education programmes, and examines changes in their constructs of sexuality education during their teacher education in health education. Comparisons between their original beliefs about what constitutes 'good' sexuality education and those they had developed after three years of teacher education are made. Before beginning and after completing introductory health education courses in 2004 and third-year health education specialism courses in 2006, quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Analysis of the earlier data showed that participants saw learning about physical safety and disaster prevention as constituting effective sexuality education. By the end of 2006, although physical safety and avoiding risk were still presented as important aspects of sexuality education, a theme of 'sexuality isn't just about sex' had emerged. Positive and comprehensive approaches to teaching about sexuality now defined their constructs of sexuality education. Only few participants, however, demonstrated embedded understanding of sexuality as a social construction, or expressed critical or socio-ecological perspectives of sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative narrative study examined contraceptive use and non-use in light of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The purpose of this paper was to understand contraceptive use and non-use among Finnish teenage girls: why do girls use or not use contraception in a sexually motivated situation and how do the determinants of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (intention, attitudes, social norms, self-efficacy and preparatory behaviour) and situational factors affect girls' contraception-related behaviour? The data are comprised of the narratives of 41 girls regarding their experience with sexually motivated situations that involved contraceptive use or non-use. The narratives were analysed with narrative analysis, a categorical-content mode of reading. The findings suggest that, in light of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and its key determinants, attitude, intention and preparatory behaviour, like carrying condoms, having a condom available and discussing safer sex before intercourse, were not alone sufficient for predicting contraceptive use. The crucial element seems to be self-efficacy. This study provides situational information about adolescent girls' contraception-related decision-making and practical implications for health promoters and sex educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines research that was conducted among students, parents, teachers and senior management teams in six secondary schools in the Greater Dublin area of Ireland. The research involved semi-structured interviews and observations. The findings of this research are significant in that it was the first time any data had been gathered on this topic directly from those within the school system. Overall, the qualitative nature of the data allowed us to obtain an insight into how students, parents, teachers and senior management teams understand and experience homosexuality and the related issue of homophobic bullying in their schools. As a dimension of relationships and sexuality education in Irish secondary schools, sexual orientation is very much a peripheral issue. However, the data from this study show that the impact of not having a mainstream approach to sexual orientation within schools results in fear, negative stereotypes, and worse still discriminatory and bullying behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, it is argued that sexuality education for individuals with intellectual disabilities has historically been incomplete to non-existent. While some progress has been made in this area, individuals with intellectual disabilities continue to receive inadequate sexuality education due to its failure to address the 'ignored curriculum'. The ignored curriculum is defined as the curriculum learned incidentally outside the classroom through peer interactions - interactions from which students with intellectual disabilities are often precluded. Here, comprehensive sexuality education that addresses the ignored curriculum is linked to a person's ability to exercise full rights of citizenship. An argument is made for a critical pedagogical approach to sexuality education as an effective means to teach individuals with intellectual disabilities the ignored curriculum of sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a review of reviews to identify characteristics of effective sex and relationship education (SRE) interventions and/or programmes in young people to improve sexual health and identify barriers and facilitators for implementation. Six bibliographic databases were searched from 1986 to 2006 for systematic reviews that assessed SRE interventions or programmes in participants between 10 and 18 years old and their partners. All outcomes of improvement in sexual health were assessed and 30 systematic reviews were included. Effective interventions and/or programmes tended to be those targeting younger age groups before they become sexually active, focused interventions tailored to the physical and biological development stages, theory based, and abstinence education programmes that incorporate values of relationships and provide skills training and links to contraceptive services. Adequate training of personnel delivering the interventions and culturally sensitive programmes were identified as important facilitators of effectiveness. Future research should explore the appropriate age for initiating sex education and investigate targeting specific behaviour compared with multiple-outcome targeting. Research exploring the reasons for interventions focusing on specific populations (i.e. African and Hispanic origins), even if they were conducted in countries dominated by Caucasians, is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the world people face confusion in their thinking about love, sex and marriage. Since the problem is universal, it is useful to examine its scope in a limited or local sense. This paper examines a story of one person in the hope of shedding light on a problem that exists for all. The method we use is to record a narrative told by one woman as she seeks resolution and clarification of the problems that she identifies in her story. We use the narrative to present the magic realist approach where the story begins as it ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited research addressing the beliefs of adolescents related to Voluntary Counseling and HIV-Testing (VCT). This paper analyzes qualitative data on such beliefs elicited from male youth in Uganda and Malawi. Although study participants understood the mainstream public health rhetoric on VCT, much of their narratives framed going for HIV testing in terms of danger, as a sign of lack of self-confidence, and as an acknowledgment of vulnerability. This tendency, we contend, is strongly rooted in the inclination of male youth to perform and validate their identities in gestures of self-certitude, imperviousness, invulnerability, and invincibility. Further, the idea of 'not wanting to die alone' from AIDS also featured prominently in the narratives, with many respondents declaring that they would deliberately infect others with HIV should they test positive. Key to freeing young people from the shackles of consternation and misconceptions about VCT and HIV is comprehensive HIV education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study that examines how a group of teachers at a Victorian Islamic College deliberated on how to develop an appropriate sexual health education curriculum for their Muslim students. Teachers found themselves challenged by the current restrictive curriculum structures, policies and practices at their school. They also found themselves struggling with embedded student cultural understandings and traditions of sexual health that contradict Islamic teachings as stated in the Qur'an and Hadith. In contemplating the possibilities of a sexual health curriculum from an Islamic perspective, teachers desired to confront longstanding political issues and hegemonic structures at their school to enable the search for a solution to a curriculum problem and construct the conditions necessary for its sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue in the context of a wider argument about the notion of queering elementary education. When Queering Elementary Education was published 10 years ago there was very little writing or research on matters related to primary education, and just finding experienced educators to contribute and allaying the concerns of our publisher proved to be challenges. The book was met with considerable opposition, and angry reactions to challenging established norms in terms of family, marriage and sexuality have continued to follow work addressing sexuality in primary settings to the current day. Nevertheless, under the guise of protecting children we actually put them at risk for becoming bullies, being bullied and failing to realize their full humanness as gendered and sexual beings. In this book we proposed a critical sexual pedagogy, an interrogative approach I continue to advocate for the exploration of gender and sexual assumptions. Queering elementary education means interrogating our institutions as well as our own complicity in regimes of truth that ill-serve young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tradition of anti-homophobia education is often characterized by the conflation of gender and sexuality in which oppression arising from gender non-normativity is subsumed within the sexuality-based concepts of homophobia and heterosexism. This paper presents the view that oppression arising from stringent gender normativity should instead be attributed to a gender-based form of oppression: genderism. Through critically interrogating the envisioned aims of anti-homophobia and anti-genderism as gender-based educational projects, it is argued that - given the ways in which gender non-normativity is routinely read as non-heterosexuality - anti-genderism is a more transparent and broadly applicable platform on which to elaborate measures toward safeguarding of all students against hegemonic processes of sexuality and gender normalization, regardless of each student's sexual orientation or gender identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those who teach sexuality education are integral to the success of programmes that positively foster young people as sexual subjects. Knowing what makes an effective educator is therefore crucial for developing and delivering programmes that are successful in this respect. Starting from the premise that effective sexuality education meets the needs and interests of young people, this paper considers who young people think make the best educators and why. Findings are drawn from questionnaire and focus group data. Peer educators were named most frequently in questionnaire findings as the best people to teach about sexuality at school. Reasons for naming them were the same as for selecting other educator categories as 'best'. Interpreting this finding in conjunction with focus group data suggests participants valued particular educator 'qualities' more than 'who' the educator was. An argument for problematising the perceived relationship between educator identity and teaching effectiveness in sexuality education is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper presents findings drawn from a qualitative study that investigated the impact of childhood sexual abuse on school functioning among young adult survivors in South Africa. Data were obtained by means of in-depth individual interviews with 22 young adults. Analysing the interviews following procedures aligned to a grounded theory approach, the findings revealed the link between the emotional consequences of the experience and the individual's school performance. To provide a detailed explanation of the victims' responses, the discussion includes the multifaceted factors that trigger emotions and their interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexuality education for school-aged young people is a crucial component of all quality education systems. It prepares young people for participation in society as responsible, mature and community-minded citizens. Most contemporary school education curricula generally aim to enhance young people's knowledge, skills and understandings of the world, and of their rights as human beings and citizens of nations. The current sexuality problems of many young people are the opposite of these; namely, ignorance, lack of skills, misunderstandings, and loss of rights, as well as unnecessary fear and shame about themselves and others. Many young people do not receive any sexuality education at all, and frequently parents have been found to be unsatisfactory providers of sexuality education for their offspring. Schools, then, become the logical place to provide this. Nowadays, the earlier maturing of girls and boys provides a further persuasive argument for quality sexuality education in all schools. The absence or erosion of school-based sexuality education through ignorance, fear or unreasoned response helps support ignorance about sexual behaviours, increased rates of unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and the cruel loss of life opportunities for young people. The present paper responds to 12 parental objections to school sexuality education, by providing research facts and evidence-based reasoned arguments to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper interrogates the ways in which school is produced as a particular bounded place (or collection of places) where sexuality, and particularly non-heterosexuality, is carefully policed by these boundaries. Drawing upon data generated in primary schools during a nationwide action research project ('No Outsiders'), we focus on three very different school places: the classroom, the staffroom and a school-based after-school art club. Our analysis engages with the contingency of place-making to show that place is neither a unitary experience nor a neutral stage upon which social relations are enacted. The three vignettes analysed offer insights into the critical potential of consciously and persistently working across (apparently) boundaried spaces within and beyond schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy and practice on sex and relationships education (SRE) in England often has the stated objectives of delaying sexual activity, reducing sexually transmitted infections and lowering rates of teenage conception. Underlying these objectives is the desire to support young people in making 'informed choices' and developing the skills that will enable them negotiate positive relationships. The concept of informed choice is often linked to the concept of 'empowerment', which implies a less determined set of outcomes. Not only does current SRE policy in England present a seemingly incompatible amalgamation of two different approaches - a statutorily imposed, adult-led, focus on behavioural outcomes, and an empowerment framework with the unpredictability of outcome that this presupposes - but it also fails to take into account thorny problems surrounding the notion of empowerment. Drawing on Lukes' account of power, this paper provides a critical exploration of the conceptualisation of empowerment and subsequent practical impediments to the development and implementation of 'empowerment' within school-based SRE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues relating to the sexual behaviour and sexual health of young people consistently capture newspaper headlines in the UK. The present paper provides a qualitative analysis of national newspaper articles reporting on sex and relationship education (SRE) within the context of teenage pregnancy. Overall, conservative newspapers were generally less supportive of SRE, while the liberal and left-wing press was more supportive. Across newspaper titles, classroom SRE was described as inadequate at best, the potential for peer educators was highlighted and greater parental involvement in SRE was advocated. The need to raise the priority status of SRE was broadly backed by the broadsheets, but proposals for compulsory primary school SRE were framed as scandalous in some tabloids and the quality of evidence supporting SRE was frequently questioned. Abstinence programmes were promoted within moralistic discourse in two newspapers, although other titles focused on the ineffectiveness of abstinence-based approaches. There was extensive opposition to explicitness and discussion of non-penetrative sex in SRE, with sensationalist headlines accompanying negative commentary on one British SRE programme. It is suggested that making SRE a statutory component of the National Curriculum could help reduce the vulnerability of SRE to such newspaper agenda setting in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper explores the ways in which non-heteronormative sexual identities are represented and made to appear 'other' and potentially abject within North-American and British pedagogic cultures, and how this regime of representation affects the development and construction of sexualities in the young. Taking Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and bodily hexis as structural starting points, I draw on Butler's theoretical work to examine how gender is represented and regulated through performative relations but how these also offer a site for resistance. I discuss Winnicott's theory of the 'transitional object' and the 'potential space' of play that it affords, to discuss one such site, a space in which gender divisions are not yet understood (in infancy) and where they can be questioned (in childhood and adulthood). To help me navigate a complex terrain I refer to a large, photographic piece by Jeff Wall, 'A ventriloquist at a birthday party in October 1947'. Using this work as an interlocutor, I investigate a domestic situation in which normalcy is overturned by the 'uncanniness' of the performance, a phenomenon that undermines the pedagogic agenda to offer an equivocal space for fantasy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the case for those entering/considering same-sex relationships to be included in sex and relationship education in schools. The Government's Guidance on Sex and Relationship Education provides a rationale for including same-sex relationships when it says that schools should meet the needs of all their pupils 'whatever their developing sexuality'. Research on sex education and domestic violence prevention for schools has highlighted issues of gender, power, the importance of understanding context in providing skills and knowledge for safer sex and non-abusive relationships. However, both tend to assume the context is heterosexuality. Results from our Economic & Social Research Council-funded study of domestic violence in same-sex and heterosexual relationships indicates that those aged under 25 years of age and those in first same-sex relationships are particularly vulnerable to experiencing domestic violence. Four themes arise from the qualitative data that provide a rationale for the provision of sex and relationship education to these young people: first same-sex relationships as an affirmation of identity; and lack of knowledge about what to expect in same-sex relationships; of embeddedness in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer friendship networks; and of resources to seek help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex education is a contested site in the school curriculum as communities grapple with who should teach young people about sex and how it should be taught. In this paper we ask whether same-sex-attracted young people are being exposed to appropriate and relevant sex education at school, and if they are not whether it is necessary that sex education be inclusive of sexual difference. In the second Australian survey of 1749 same-sex-attracted youth of 14-21 years old, we ask young people about sex education classes at school, how useful they were for them, their sources of information regarding gay and lesbian relationships and safe sex, sexual behaviours and incidence of sexually transmissible infections and pregnancy. We find from the data that most of these young people found sex education to be useless because it was not inclusive. In comparison with normative studies, these young people were, on average, sexually active earlier, had higher rates of diagnosed sexually transmissible infections and at least as high an incidence of pregnancy. We conclude from the data that there is a need for sex education in schools to be inclusive of the sexuality of all students, not just those who are attracted to the opposite sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outcomes from sex education are shaped not only by the knowledge and attitudes of youth but also by groups influential in young people's lives. American youth bear one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the industrialized world. Four constituencies with important roles in communicating about STIs are youth, parents, healthcare providers and policy advocates of sex education. This paper aims to understand the attitudes held by these key groups and to ascertain common ground. Eight focus groups were conducted with: youth 15-23 years old (n = 20), parents of youth 10-19 years old (n = 18), healthcare providers (n = 17), and advocates working with national policymakers (n = 6). Participants discussed the issue of STIs in youth within both individual and societal contexts: the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of individual youth - Ignorance, Exploration, Peer Pressure, Denial, and Indifference; and the influence of segments of society that could affect decisions by youth - Sex is a taboo topic, Reluctant communication by parents, Restricted school education, Limited communication by doctors, Poor role models, and Missing information in media. Understanding the groups' common ground of individual and societal contexts may provide a foundation for more effective sex education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio-cognitive processes underlying intentions to use condoms and contraceptive pills, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour extended with prototypes in a group of young Norwegian adolescents. The data are derived from a questionnaire survey comprising all pupils in Grade Nine at three schools in Oslo (n = 196). Using hierarchical multiple regression analyses, the results showed that prototypes and normative beliefs, especially partner's opinion, were the most important predictors for boys' condom decisions. For girls' condom decisions, normative and attitudinal considerations were most important. Perceived risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases was the most important predictor among behavioural beliefs for condom intention for both girls and boys. Normative beliefs, and especially parental opinions, were most important for girls' decisions to use contraceptive pills. Implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a novel qualitative study that identified the concerns of young people about sex through a talk-back segment from 2002 to 2004 on an Australian national radio popular music programme targeting 15-24 year olds. Two hundred and thirty-one unsolicited callers (150 female and 81 male) went to air over the study period, and 212 (92%) of these asked questions relating to sexuality and sexual health. Content analysis was used to categorise the verbatim data. Four categories were identified: sexual development; sexual and reproductive health, sexual relationship issues and sexual practices. The findings suggest that young people have a wide range of concerns, many of which are very explicit. An important finding was the high proportion of questions related to concerns over relationships. The overall implication for health educators and professionals is that a broader approach to sex education is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education programmes for sex and relationships are greatly needed globally. One way such information can be delivered is via the media. Sex and relationship advice has long been a popular media component, but the quality, accuracy and effectiveness of such advice - particularly from the sex 'expert' or 'agony aunt' - has not been adequately addressed. Given the rising cult of the 'expert' and 'self-improvement' features within the media alongside growing sexual health problems, this paper discusses problems associated with providing media sex education and makes suggestions for effective communication of sex and relationships messages for those who wish to be media sex educators or who already offer media sex and relationships advice and seek to improve their skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports sex education preferences from an ethnically diverse sample of 3007 15-18 year olds. Findings are presented on preferred topics, where and from whom young people would like to receive this information. Preferences were centred around learning more about sexual behaviour and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in particular, and receiving this at school from someone 'professional' and of similar age. Females showed a greater preference towards learning about emotions, relationships and contraception, and to having this delivered by someone of the same sex. Of the four main ethnic groups, Black and Asian students generally reported more sex education preferences than White British or White Other students. Black students wanted to learn more about biological issues and cultural issues alongside sexual behaviour and STIs. Black male students reported a greater than average preference towards family-based information, and interest towards someone of the same ethnic background delivering sex education was also expressed. Asian students reported stronger preferences for more information about STIs and contraception, and wished to keep sex education out of the family household. Implications for sex and relationships education and working with professionals and parents are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003 a campaign took place against a new model of sex education in South Australia. This campaign, organized primarily by Christian Right1 groups, included community forums, a letter-writing campaign, extensive media coverage and a parliamentary debate. This paper analyses the language, arguments and strategies used by those who opposed the programme and explores some of the challenges in responding to this in a way that destabilizes the 'family values' discourse rather than reinforcing it through entrenching predictable binary positions. While this debate did not result in the withdrawal of the programme, it provides an important insight into the emergence of a more active Christian Right in Australia and signals that the gains made to implement comprehensive sex education should not be taken for granted. It also reveals the influence of the US Christian Right where similar language and arguments have shaped their government's conservative abstinence approach to sex education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elaborates possibilities and limitations for sex education in schools by mapping the consequence of introducing the topic 'sex' within a range of scientific and informal discursive settings. The organising and regulating structures of the school maintain the boundaries between common-sense and scientific discourses. Bernstein made a distinction between vertical discourse and horizontal discourses. Vertical discourses characterise scientific discourses that are coherent, explicit and systematically principled structures. Horizontal discourses characterise common-sense discourses that are local, segmented and context-dependent. The implications for teaching sex education through vertical discourses such as science, English and art as opposed to personal and social education, which is a horizontal discourse, are discussed. Yet, all discourses are unstable, and the notion of a 'tipping point' is introduced to demonstrate the potential for sex education when vertical discourses collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adolescents in communities with high rates of early sexual initiation are at risk of multiple negative health outcomes. Although sex education programs for this age group are often controversial, surveys document that many mothers and fathers would appreciate guidance about how to discuss sexuality with their children. This paper presents an innovative strategy for reaching inner-city parents and helping them communicate effectively with their preteen sons and daughters about the importance of delaying sexual initiation. Input from 38 focus groups with 109 youths and 64 parents was used to inform the development of an intervention, called Saving Sex for Later. This theoretically grounded intervention is designed for communities where adolescents are at high risk of initiating sex prior to or early in high school. It consists of three audio-CDs that contain dramatic role-model stories to help parents identify 'teachable moments' to talk with their sons and daughters about their values and expectations, set household rules and respond appropriately to both positive changes in their adolescents' development and warning signs of trouble. In addition to describing how community input informed the stories, a random sample of 133 parents from one school community was mailed the audio-CDs. Feedback includes examples of how parents applied messages to talk with their children about changing bodies, changing relationships and reasons for delaying sexual initiation. The next steps include evaluating whether the intervention is effective in helping parents convey sexual abstinence messages and in supporting the delayed sexual initiation of their young adolescent children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has documented a need for the development of a sex education programme in Turkish schools in terms of adolescence readiness and the presence of misconceptions regarding critical aspects of sexual issues. Currently no school-based sex education is available for Turkish adolescents. This paper presents the development of a contemporary sex education programme for 12-year-old to 14-year-old adolescents, entitled 'The Human Development Program for 12-14 Year Old Adolescents'. A five-step programme development model was used including reviewing internationally recognised sex education programmes for this age group. Sexuality Information and Education Council of United States guidelines were chosen as an educational framework, and Turkish cultural values were integrated into the curriculum. The sex curriculum consists of an eight-session interactive programme in which parental permission and involvement is required. Five units are presented: human development, relationships, sexual behaviour, sexual health, and society/culture. The programme and a related knowledge assessment tool were reviewed by a group of Turkish professionals and the validity of the educational content was received. The programme was piloted with a group of Turkish adolescents with positive results. Future recommendations include school counsellors implementing this sex educational programme into Turkish schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies three underlying discourses on the nature of sexuality evident in two Department of Education curriculum documents on sexuality education in Victoria, Australia, over the past 15 years. These discourses are a cultural 'preservation' perspective, a risk minimisation perspective, and a view that sexual expression should enable cultural and individual enlightenment and emancipation. This analysis of underpinning discourses is used as the basis for identifying a range of issues relating to course content, implied characteristics of learners, and appropriate teaching methods that need to be addressed in future documents if diverse goals in this area relating to knowledge and attitudinal outcomes are to be met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how issues of adolescent development might be brought into conversation with dilemmas in sex education. Here, sex education is larger than information, affirmation or prohibition. In its address to the most intimate aspects of life - love, loss, vulnerability, power, friendship, aggression - sex education is necessarily entangled in the adolescent's efforts to construct a self, find love outside the family, enjoy one's newly adult body; in short, various relationships that might cautiously be called developmental. Drawing on the work of psychoanalysts Winnicott and Sandler, I argue that, to imagine adolescents as sexual subjects, we need to have a theory of adolescent sexuality, how it differs from and is similar to adult sexuality; and, furthermore, we need to have a patience and curiosity about the ways adult sexuality is inhabited by the memories, fantasies and experiences of adolescence. That is, how can sex education make room for a theory of adolescent development without casting the adolescent in the risky role of not yet adult? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scandinavia has long been admired by American liberals and sex education advocates who cite comparable rates of adolescent sexuality, yet lower rates of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion in Scandinavia. The United States has, however, two variables with which Scandinavia in general, and Norway in particular, has not historically had to contend (i.e. socioeconomic disadvantage and a multicultural society). In part due to these financially stable, homogeneous societies, the Scandinavian countries have established national sex education curricula with relatively little controversy. Recent immigrants to Scandinavia, however, particularly sexually conservative Muslims, throw new challenges into Scandinavia's health and sex education system. For this paper, I will focus on Norway, specifically Sogn Videregående, the country's largest high school, and use participant observation and interview research conducted there during the summer of 2003 to discuss the multiculturalization of Norway and how this has changed, or left unchanged, the sex education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the wildly successful blockbuster American Pie teenpics, especially American Pie 3—The Wedding. I argue that these films are specifically designed to appeal to teenage male audiences, and to provide lessons in sex and romance. Movies like this are especially important as they are experienced by far more teenagers than, for example, instructional films or other classroom materials; indeed, as Henry Giroux has observed, ‘Learning in the postmodern age is located .. in popular spheres that shape their identities, through forms of knowledge and desires that appear absent from what is taught in schools’. I discuss whether the American Pie series is actually a ‘new age’ effort that, via insubordinate performances of gender, contests the hegemonic field of signification that regulates the production of sex, gender and desire, or whether it is a retrogressive hetero‐conservative opus with a veneer of sexual radicalism. I probe whether this filmic vector for sex education is about the shaping of responsible, caring, vulnerable men, or is it guiding them to be like their heterosexual, middle‐class fathers? And whether, despite its riotous and raunchy advertising, American Pie dishes up something spicy or something terribly wholesome instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I consider the ways that the instrumental and cautionary profile of sex and relationship education is used to regulate the sexuality of young people in the United Kingdom. This regulation is partly a counter to the commodification of sex in the mass media but also a means to reinforce the social and cultural norms that are performed within the binary structure of gender identities as exemplified by the nuclear family. I offer an alternative strategy where works of art become the locus for a discussion of young people's concerns about sexuality. With reference to the recent work of Paula Rego, I examine the imaginary and symbolic space afforded works of art to demonstrate how interpretation can provide insights into the workings of desire, and the way such interpretative acts might enable young people to discuss eroticism. I argue that because this ambiguous space provides a certain distance, sexual norms can be questioned without either the prurient/censorial attitudes of the tabloid press or the clinical/moralising agendas of pedagogic discourse. In other words, within the discursive/hermeneutic space engendered by works of art, young people are able to bypass those instrumental discourses that are unhelpful in the formation of sexual well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the geographical constitution of the ‘dirty weekend’ and teenage girls' sexuality by interrogating the cultural habitus of the seaside resort. It reidentifies the littoral pleasure zone as an active agent in sexual learning and disrupts taken‐for‐granted inscriptions of the seaside as an inert backdrop against which only traditional family holidays or hedonistic youthful activities take place. In the cultural imaginary of Britain, the seaside assumes centre‐place as a site of normativity. At the same time, it indexes the social and spatial limits of disorder and connects coastal towns with diverse moral panics. While this place–image binary resists other interpretations, closure can be challenged by recognizing the seaside as a cultural text that is to hold open the possibility of further re‐readings and re‐writings. In alignment with this broadening, two liminal sexual/textual topographies are narrated that cohere around the heterosexual carnivalesque of Brighton and the local experiences of adolescent girls in Margate. Issues are raised about the ways in which the specificity of place inflects sexual learning and how geographical insights can contribute to sex/sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the concern that sexual health programs targeting adolescents may actually increase HIV risk among youth by reinforcing dominant versions of masculinity that portray males as sexually irresponsible and unconcerned about their health. If a key aim in HIV prevention education is a renegotiation of high‐risk behavioral norms, an important consideration is the ways young people resist stereotypical gender norms that can lead to risky sexual practices. From this perspective, opening up spaces for the expression of counter‐hegemonic masculinities may be an important health prevention strategy. In a study conducted in three urban Toronto high schools, we explore the ways students in mixed‐sex groups supported or challenged dominant discourses of masculinity expressed through three themes: notions of male sexuality as unrestrained and unrestrainable; narrow definitions of sex; and concepts of ‘risk’ and resistance to condom use. We argue that designing HIV prevention programs that begin with the exploration of alternative masculinities may be one way to fashion a framework for gender relations that can offer youth more effective prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an evaluation of a drama‐based Healthy Relationships programme on domestic violence delivered on a pilot basis to Year 8 pupils. The programme included a play delivered by a local theatre‐in‐education company followed by a series of weekly workshops. Eighty‐five pupils in a secondary school located in an area with high rates of social exclusion participated in the programme and the evaluation. Pupils completed questionnaires immediately before and after the programme and one year after the programme had finished. Thirteen pupils also took part in gendered discussion groups, which considered their views and opinions concerning the play and the workshops. The evaluation indicated that the programme was successful in enhancing pupils' understandings of domestic violence up to one year after delivery. Pupils responded well to the use of drama as a medium for learning, and some young people were able to demonstrate that they had developed positive ideas about healthy relationships. However, there was evidence of uncertainly for some young people with regard to the gendered nature of domestic violence following the programme. The discussion highlights this issue and identifies additional recommendations for both future research and future programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on young men's views on the school sex education they have received, the influence of this sex education on their intended or actual behaviour, and the extent to which other sources of information complement or supplement school sex education. Thirty‐five in‐depth interviews and eight group discussions were conducted with male pupils from six schools in the east of Scotland. Most of those interviewed did cite school as a useful source in learning about sex. The most commonly named highlights were learning more about what girls think about sexual matters and learning how to use a condom. Nine described how something they had learned in school sex education had changed the way they had behaved in a sexual encounter. A further eight, who had not experienced sexual intercourse, talked about how they thought sex education would influence their behaviour in a positive way in the future. The most common criticism of sex education was that it was not explicit enough. Although friends and/or television were named by the majority of young men as useful, for most young men school sex education appeared to be the only substantive source of information they had received on sexual matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, school‐based sex education has provided information‐based programmes, with the assumption that young people make rational decisions with regard to the use of condoms. However, these programmes fail to take into account contextual issues and developing subjectivities. This paper presents the talk of 42 young people from a New Zealand secondary school who were questioned in‐depth about the sex education programme they had received. They discussed a programme that concentrated on the ‘dangers’ and ‘risks’ of sexual intercourse and that failed to enhance negotiation skills or take into account the contexts in which sex occurred for many young people. Although participants were well aware of the public health discourses of the importance of condom use, the implications of putting these discourses into practice held the potential for ‘risks’ of a greater magnitude in the reality of their everyday life. The ‘risk’ to reputation and subjectivity overrode any ‘risks’ that may have occurred through non‐use of condoms. This highlights the need for sex education programmes to put greater effort into developing skills of assertiveness, communication and empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the notion of ‘doing boy’ through performance is explored. The point is made that singing is a potential gender performance but the treble voice of the 8‐year‐old to 14‐year‐old boy is a biologically determined as well as socially constructed feature of young masculinity. A complication is the degree to which the boy's treble voice is traditionally associated with sacred music. Recent attempts at widening participation in singing by cathedrals are evaluated for their potential to increase male participation in the arts through more eclectic forms of repertoire and the sharing of musical expertise. The under‐representation of males is seen as a problem in the study and boys' choices not to sing during the 8–14 years because of uncertainty about the gendering of the high voice is presented as the major issue. Different sexualities can attach to vocal performance by young males, and these are explored. The changed voice of the ‘boy band’ is associated with explicit performances of heterosexuality in the tradition of hegemonic masculinity. The unchanged treble voice, through its strong association with sacred music, can represent innocence, but such innocence may be related to other forms of masculinity than the hegemonic type. This makes for continued ambivalence over whether boys' singing is a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ form of masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite huge prevention efforts the number of HIV infections worldwide continues to increase dramatically. Among other strategies, the HIV test offers an important chance for targeted prevention, provided quality counselling is offered. Several studies have revealed that HIV testing is often performed in less than optimal conditions and is often not effective. In this paper we argue that effective counselling must be based on a comprehensive sex education approach. To understand sexual risk behaviour, and to change it, the complexity of sexual behaviour has to be taken into account. Sex is one of the most socially diverse of human activities. The meaning of sex differs profoundly among societies, cultures, subcultures, particular relationships and individuals. As a consequence, HIV counselling must be tailored to the specific risk situation of the particular individual or couple asking for the test. Rather than (or in addition to) offering universal knowledge and advice, the counsellor should discuss the specific meaning of (unsafe) sex and the obstacles for safer sex for the specific person or couple in a dialogue and focus on their empowerment in order to have safer sex in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an alternative approach to undertaking and evaluating sexual health promotion, focusing on the notion of sexual scenes and scenarios and how these can provide a vantage point from which to examine sexual experience. The concept of sexual scenes provides a context within which to analyse many of the behavioural and epidemiological factors associated with sexual practice. In principle, such an approach provides a tool for conscientization , action and the invention of novel group and individual repertoires that may result in individual and social mobilization for health and/or sexual and reproductive rights. Scenes can be elicited through individual interviews, group interviews and discussions, or through staged and dramatized performance and students' writing. Analysing sexual scenes offers an entry point for dialogue in sexual health promotion programming. Evaluation of these programmes can be part of the process of changing sexual scenarios. Change is witnessed not only through individual changes but, especially in impoverished communities, through challenges to dominant local sexual scenarios and engagement with structural concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do young people conceptualise ‘effective’ sexuality education? This paper explores 16‐year‐old to 19‐year‐old New Zealanders' vision of effective sexuality education as it emerges in answers to a survey question about improving programmes at secondary school. Young people's responses suggest that their view of what makes sexuality education effective may diverge from those who perceive a reduction in sexually transmissible infections and unplanned pregnancy as ultimate markers of effectiveness. Participants in this study referred to other criteria around aspects of classroom structure, curriculum content and teacher competency as rendering programmes effective. Through their comments young people are positioned more positively and legitimately as sexual subjects than they are typically constituted in programmes that emphasise reducing negative outcomes of sexual activity. It is proposed that giving more weight to young people's view of effective sexuality education, and the constitution of student sexuality this implies, could be beneficial to their sexual health and well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, gender norms and power differentials profoundly affect both girls' and boys' sexual attitudes, practices and health. One avenue for enabling young people to reflect on traditional gender arrangements that endanger their health—and to lay the groundwork for satisfying sexual lives—is sexuality and relationships education (SRE). Unfortunately, many SRE programmes address gender norms and critical thinking skills either superficially or not at all. Moreover, in some developing countries, SRE programmes do not reach the majority of girls aged 15–19, a high proportion of whom are simply not in school. This paper argues for grounding SRE within a social studies framework, emphasizing gender and social context. Such an approach can foster critical thinking skills, can provide a foundation for subsequent lessons on explicitly sexual topics, can illuminate the links between gender inequality and other social issues, can allow for a human‐rights emphasis that may prove politically less controversial than technical sexuality topics, and may ultimately prove vital to achieving better sexual health outcomes. The experience of community‐based programmes provides lessons for designing and evaluating such approaches in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining ‘success’ in sexuality education solely in terms of quantitative outcome measures is woefully inadequate. All too often, such measures presuppose and perpetuate a narrow and overly instrumental view of sexuality and education. Research and evaluation favouring quantitative measures of effectiveness tend to amplify short‐term results and mediocre ends at the expense of more substantive insight into the complexities and nuances of human action and good practice. The paper begins with a true story involving a teenager and high‐risk behaviours. This story serves as a basis for an allegorical exploration of programme development, goals and vision. The allegory offers a context for thinking about the importance of research and evaluation methods that focus on expressive action, agency and symbolic metaphorical thinking as opposed to measurable behaviours and linear logical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces research papers about the effects and effectiveness in sex and relationships education, published in the November 2005 issue of the journal.

Effective sex and relationship education promotes agency and targets sexual practice as it is socially produced. The aim of evaluation therefore is to contribute to good sexual health through identifying when and how education is promoting agency and changes in sexual practice. Good evaluation takes account of the complexities of the specific object being addressed—sexual practice—which is fluid and essentially social. Innovative study design and the use of rigorous and transparent methods enable evaluators to track and understand the slow, unsteady and sometimes unpredictable mechanisms of change. The data gathered (both quantitative and qualitative) require interpretation, and interpretations inform the development of sex and relationship education programmes. Randomised controlled trials do not meet these criteria of meaningful evaluation, nor do evaluations of one‐off interventions. This paper considers the role of cross‐sectional and longitudinal surveys, in‐depth qualitative studies, and reviews in evaluating whether education works, how it works, how its messages are being actively taken up and transformed by the target population, and in informing the development of future education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the common criteria by which school‐based sex and relationship programmes are evaluated, and argues that the domination of public health outcomes serves to make invisible other aspects of courses that warrant attention. In particular, the role of pleasure in sexual development and relations is normally not acknowledged. While it may be unacceptable in most cultures to suggest that teaching young people how to achieve sexual pleasure is valuable, there are increasing indications—from developing as well as developed countries—that public health outcomes may benefit from a greater acceptance of positive sexual experiences. It is suggested that greater comfort with one's own body will enable greater ability to communicate wishes to others, and to be less ‘pressured’ into unwanted sexual relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]