Sexuality and relationship education training to primary and secondary school teachers: an evaluation of provision in Western Australia

This paper describes the formative, process and short term impact evaluation of sexuality and relationships education (SRE) training for teachers in Western Australia (WA) over a three year period. The training represents one component of a broader project, the aims of which are to improve teacher’s confidence and skills in delivering SRE, and to support schools to implement effective comprehensive SRE. Formative evaluation conducted prior to the development of the training, found although most respondents were relatively confident and skilled in facilitating SRE, the need for ongoing professional development was highlighted, especially in areas such as gender diversity, pornography, sexting, violence and working with specific groups. Training focusing on the new Australian Health and Physical Education curriculum and mandatory assessment was identified as a need. Workshop evaluation found statistically significant improvements in attitudes towards SRE and increased comfort in teaching SRE, facilitating discussion and facilitating skills and activities, after the workshop. The evaluation identified the need for an integrated and coordinated whole school approach and efforts to engage teachers with lower levels of confidence in teaching SRE. Changes to the Australian Curriculum provide opportunities to enhance the development of SRE in schools. Longer-term impact evaluation is required to identify whole school changes.     

Sexuality education in South Africa: Three essential questions

Sex education is the cornerstone on which most HIV/AIDS prevention programmes rest and since the adoption of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), has become a compulsory part of the South African school curriculum through the Life Orientation learning area. However, while much focus has been on providing young people with accurate and frank information about safe sex, this paper questions whether school-based programmes sufficiently support the needs of young people. This paper is based on a desk-review of the literature on sex and sexuality education and examines it in relation to the South African educational context and policies. It poses three questions: (a) what do youth need from sexuality education? (b) Is school an appropriate environment for sex education? (c) If so, what can be said about the content of sex education as well as pedagogy surrounding it? Through reviewing the literature this paper critically engages with education on sex and sexuality in South Africa and will argue that in order to effectively meet the needs of youth, the content of sexual health programmes needs to span the whole spectrum of discourses, from disease to desire. Within this spectrum, youth should be constructed as “knowers” as opposed to innocent in relation to sex. How youth are taught as well as how their own knowledge and experience is positioned in the classroom is as important as content in ensuring that youth avoid negative sexual health outcomes.     

Sexuality education in Europe: an overview of current policies

Comprehensive sexuality education is one of the most important tools to ensure that young people have the information they need to make healthy and informed choices. The aim of this article is, firstly, to outline general issues about sexuality education pertaining to curriculum content, the didactic methods used, agencies involved, political support, coverage and adequacy of provision and barriers to effective sexuality education in Europe. Secondly, the current state of sexuality education in most European Union member states and Norway is described, enabling a Europe-wide comparison of country experiences in the field. This reveals a wide variety of didactic methods and policies that have shaped the provision of sexuality education and the ease and difficulties with which the subject can be implemented, and at what age and in what form it is available.     

Sexuality education in India: examining the rhetoric,rethinking the future

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) has been recognised globally as key to helping young people assert their sexual and reproductive rights. In India too, there is growing awareness of the importance of providing CSE not only to reduce sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancies and abortions but also to teach important life skills. Simultaneously, lack of political will and conflicting interests among certain religious and political factions have ensured that no uniform CSE curriculum has been implemented throughout the country. This paper analyses the Adolescent Education Programme teacher curriculum as revised in 2009–2010 by the National Council of Educational Research and Training and the United Nations Population Fund. It highlights some of the opportunities presented by the curriculum and argues that despite its intent of providing relevant sexuality education for young people, the language of the curriculum is vague, thus potentially exacerbating confusion, and excluding people who do not conform to societal stereotypes of sex, gender, and ability. In order to be holistic, any CSE programme must be inclusive, cater to diverse needs and present content in a rights-based language without adding to the socio-cultural context of mystery and shame attached to sexuality.     

The limits of school choice: some implications for accountability of selective practices and positional competition in Australian education

The application of market principles to educational provision continues to attract governments across the globe, despite an international body of literature suggesting that marketisation can exacerbate inequalities. In light of a renewed policy push in Australia towards accountability via a market model, this paper analyses the impact of existing school choice policies in the state of Victoria, with particular reference to educational provision in an area of social disadvantage in Melbourne's north. This analysis challenges the claims of the now normalised market model, but also points to the need to expand research into this theme, which has attracted relatively little critical attention in Australia. I argue that both the operation of existing policies and the direction of new proposals imply an uneven system of accountability which applies different standards to increasingly polarised ‘closed’ and ‘open’ schooling sectors.     

Sexuality education as a collective responsibility: a new health education curriculum in Cyprus

The development of health promotion is typically viewed as a reaction against both the excessive responsibility placed on individuals concerning their health-related choices and the absence of recognition of environmental factors associated with personal decision making. What though does sexuality education mean from the perspective of health promotion? According to one approach, it implies the existence of a curriculum that recognises the environmental factors affecting sexuality and sexual behaviour. It also suggests a curriculum that aims to empower students to engage with risky sexual behaviour, not just as a personal issue but also as a social matter. The emphasis is placed not merely on developing personal knowledge and skills associated with sexuality and sexual behaviour but on enabling active citizens to protect themselves and their co-citizens from sexual risks and to promote healthy sexuality. This paper discusses such a health promotion perspective in relation to the sexuality education curriculum as recently developed in Cyprus. It demonstrates how a health promotion perspective in relation to sex education can be translated into the establishment of learning objectives, appropriate pedagogic methods and the development of school materials.     

Sexuality education for young children: The role of parents

An important component of family life is sexuality education. Being comfortable with one's sexuality is an essential component of individual and family wellness. To this end, parents and teachers who intend to assist in young children's sexuality education must be comfortable and well informed.Nilufer P. Medora is Associate Professor, Department of Home Economics, California State University, Long Beach, CA. Stephan Wilson is Associate Professor, and Director, Center for Kentucky Children and Family Research, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. 40506.     

Conceptualizing the margins in science education: the limits of multicultural analyses

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Using a phenomenographic design, this research reports on a study of a cohort (N?=?22) of graduate students’ conceptualizations of...     

谈学校教育中的基本道德教育

学校教育在提高国民的道德素质方面有重要作用,本文认为学校道德教育的内容有:(1)爱党报国之志。(2)诚实守信之德。(3)仁义孝慈之心。(4)礼仪谦恭之风。     

Comparative higher education: potentials and limits

Research on higher education is an object-focussed area based on a broad range of disciplines. The institutional base is often shaky and diverse. Various characteristics, notably the blurred distinction between the scholar and the reflective practitioner, contribute to considerable tensions, though research on higher education enjoys substantial public attention.Interest in comparative research on higher education grew in recent years and was reinforced by the community of higher education researchers in Europe. As it can be conceptually and methodologically demanding and fruitful, the growing interest could serve as a stimulus for enhancing a common identity and a growing quality. However, few comparative research designs represent the ideal type of setting a research agenda of clearly defined hypotheses to be tested, and if they do so, the study mostly turns out to be too simplistic due to disregard of the complex context. Rather, most comparative projects are exploratory and most productive in providing unexpected insight.In addition, comparative research faces many problems of a practical nature. Costly research seems to be granted sufficient funds only if it addresses issues of current political concern. Language barriers and limits of field knowledge often lead to a poor provision of information. International collaborative research teams tend to be vulnerable due to, among others, a heterogeneity of schools of thoughts, spiralling costs and different work styles.The author argues that comparative studies on higher education are most fruitful in destroying conceptual reasoning based on narrow experience; they are a gold mine for the early stages of conceptual restructuring. They are indispensible for understanding a reality shaped by common international trends, reforms based on comparative observation, growing trans-national activities and partial supra-national integration in higher education. Comparative projects can be regarded as theoretically and methodologically most promising if they are based on a semi-structured research design, whereby the strengths of various conceptual approaches in explaining the phenomena are analysed and the researchers systematically deal with the fact that the project is likely to generate surprising information requiring to restructure the initial conceptual framework.     

职业学校体育教学中的德育教育问题研究

在体育教学中渗透思想道德教育是毫无疑问的,作为学校教育内容的两个重要组成部分,体育与德育是相辅相成的,在职业院校中,体育教师必须针对学生的特殊性对学生进行有的放矢的品德教育。本文以如何在职业学校体育教学中渗透德育教育为主题展开探讨,具有一定的现实意义和指导意义。     

Sexuality and relationships education: toward a social studies approach

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.     

幸福:学校教育的终极目标

学校教育是为了学生的幸福。但今天的学校教育并没有像我们想象的那样给学生幸福。学生要想得到真正的幸福要靠学生自身的努力,在学生走向幸福之路的过程中,作为教育者的成人要给予学生需要的东西,还要耐心地、充满爱心和希望地、带着教育智慧地等待。     

学校体育中的礼仪教育

从全方位、多层次的视角来认识学校体育,有效利用学校体育教育中所孕育的包括个人礼仪、社交礼仪、文书礼仪、习俗礼仪和体育仪式等礼仪教育内容,形成生物的、教育的、心理的、社会的多维体育“育人观”。     

学校教育中情商教育浅谈

本文结合理论与实践,在详细的分析了情商教育内涵的基础上,以英语和体育教学为例子,阐述了情商教育在学校教育中的作用和影响.     

小学英语教育当中的情感教育

情感是人们对于现实当中的客观事物所进行的反映。虽然在英语教学的过程当中,它不是理论性的因素。但是其在英语教育中对于学生的影响可谓是至关重要的。在本文中,我们将对小学英语教育当中情感的重要性进行简要的分析,依据小学英语教学现状,为其进行相应对策的提出。