Untangling the conflation of ‘young adults’ and ‘young people’ in STI and sexual health policy and sex education

Young adults, aged 18–30 years, are disproportionally mentioned in sexually transmissible infection surveillance data both in Australia and internationally. This contributes to categorising young adults as an ‘at risk’ group in health policy. How young adults are framed in policy, and what informs this, have direct implications for policy priorities and responses, including the development of health promotion programmes. In this paper, we provide a case study of Australia’s National Strategies for Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections from 2005 to 2017. We identify how ‘young adults’ as a population are masked by, and subsumed within, the broader category of ‘young people’ within these strategies. As a result, young adults become framed by default as a ‘risk category’ that requires education to correct its deficits, regardless of personal experience. For health promotion to advocate, mediate and enable better sexual health outcomes, a policy environment is needed that reflects the changing social and cultural contexts and sexual independence that young adults experience. Sexual health policies should reflect the complexity and opportunities of young adulthood if we are to offer an enabling policy environment for innovative and nuanced health promotion strategies, including adult appropriate health education.     

‘Heroes’ and ‘villains’ in the lives of children and young people

This paper explores the responses of nearly 1200 children and young people in Wales who were asked to identify which three famous people they most admired and which three they most disliked. Analysis of these young people's responses reveals a number of sociological and educational issues. Their selections confirm other research which has highlighted the importance of celebrities in the lives of young people. Their ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ are drawn mostly from the worlds of popular music and sport. Their choices are also highly gendered and ‘raced’. Of particular interest is the finding that someone's ‘villain’ is more than likely to be someone else's ‘hero’. Our young people's selection of heroes and villains reflects the broader landscape of celebrity culture, where female fame is as much about appearance as talent and Black and minority ethnic celebrities are to be found largely in the fields of sport or popular music. The paper concludes by discussing the chasm between our young people's ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ and those which are ‘officially sanctioned’ within the school curriculum and considers what schools and teachers might do about it.     

‘Technological me’: young children’s use of technology across their home and school contexts

Research into children’s learning with digital technologies is represented by a growing body of literature examining the relationship between home–school technological practices. A focus of this work is on the notion of a ‘digital-disconnect’ between home and school. This argument suggests that children are such native users of technologies they struggle to connect with commonly used technologies in school. This paper examines how the ‘digital-disconnect’ is experienced in children’s lives. Drawing on a data set investigating the digital experiences of 12 children aged 2–12 years, we consider the experiences of one family attending the same school. Three siblings aged 5–12 years recorded their home and school technology use for one week. The findings suggested some difference in use across both settings, but also similarities associated with information retrieval, rote learning and entertainment. We use Bulfin and North’s and Dyson’s ideas about the permeability of social boundaries to explain why technology use might be more similar than disconnected in each context. We consider the extent to which each setting influences the other as the basis for moving away from binary conceptualisations of the digital-disconnect informed by generational assumptions about children and technologies.     

‘Possible selves’ of young people in a mainstream secondary school and a pupil referral unit: a comparison

This research uses the psychological construct of ‘possible selves’ to investigate the aspirations of 25 students in Year 11. ‘Possible selves’ provide a conceptual link between self-concept and motivation. The study compared the positive, negative and impossible possible selves of Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) attendees with participants from a secondary school. Whereas 100% of the school students generated positive possible selves, only 69% of the PRU participants did so. The school students were more able to provide sub-goal strategies to achieve positive possible selves and could articulate alternatives if their first aspiration eluded them. PRU participants generated divergent impossible selves. The findings suggest that in comparison with those in school, PRU attendees have fragile positive selves and more negative perceptions of their prospects. This may indicate a lack of internalisation of positive future options. There are implications for practice as those who work in the PRU context aim to provide meaningful experiences.     

Embodying and resisting racialised desires in young people’s sexual imagery

Desires may be viewed as emotions that are structuring and structured by social inequalities. This paper examines how sexual desires may surface in everyday classroom interactions. It argues in particular that anti-racist sex education requires not only an awareness of a racialisation of sexuality but also of the sexualisation of race. Focusing on students’ images of desire and a selection of music video stills, the paper investigates in which ways racialised and gendered desires are relevant to students’ imagination – and how they negotiate them in the classroom. Young people’s ethnosexual imaginary reveals an affective investment on the part of adolescents in racialised sexualities in visual culture. In the context of participatory arts-based workshops, the paper analyses how images of racialised desires are transformed into material objects of boundary work. The paper concludes by proposing the re-enactment of young people’s imagery as a means to open up an affective space for negotiating desires and disdain.     

‘Teachers are kind to those who have good marks’: a study of Japanese young people’s views of fairness and equity in school

This paper presents the results from a study of Japanese young people’s views of being treated fairly in school and considers the extent to which their experiences differ from their peers in schools in England. The study involved 1191 students from nine Japanese junior high schools in their final year of study. Their experiences are compared with those of 2836 English students of the same age. Our findings suggest that while many Japanese students report positive experiences of school, many were also able to identify instances where their perceived treatment was unfair or inconsistent. These instances include teachers having students who are treated as ‘favourites’, and the apparent unequal allocation of punishments and rewards. In this respect, the reported experiences of the Japanese students were similar to those of their English peers and therefore provided no evidence to support recent ‘crisis accounts’ of the ‘examination hell’ and excessive academic pressures that are purportedly experienced by young people in Japanese schools. Nevertheless, our evidence does suggest that teacher initial and continuing development would benefit from the inclusion of rather more on the principles of equity.     

Measuring children and young people’s wellbeing in the school context

Although being rooted in the work of ancient Greek philosophers, contemporary research on wellbeing is a relatively new phenomenon. As a term in the literature, wellbeing is often used interchangeably with others, such as happiness, flourishing, enjoying a good life and life satisfaction. Furthermore, the wellbeing of school-aged children is only beginning to be explored with increasing recognition that research conducted on adults cannot be uncritically applied to children and young people. This paper aims to address some of the complexities in conceptualising, and hence assessing, children and young people’s wellbeing by drawing on a recently completed study examining the role of creative initiatives in fostering wellbeing. The new instrument that was developed to capture children and young people’s perceptions of their wellbeing in school is outlined. Data are presented from a survey of 5170 students from 20 primary and 20 secondary schools across England that identify four dimensions of wellbeing. Differences in self-reported wellbeing relating to age, gender and type of school attended (Creative Partnerships versus other schools) are explored. The implications of these findings, particularly differences related to type of school attended, given the focus of this special issue, are considered.     

‘It's got to be about enjoying yourself’: young people,sexual pleasure,and sex and relationships education

Pleasure as a component of sexualities and relationships education (SRE) has been subject to much recent discussion. Arguably, academic debate has been more prominent than practitioner perspectives, with theoretical articulations and critique superseding pragmatic attention to integrating pleasure into learning about sexualities and relationships. Though there are exceptions, sexuality education that recognises pleasure and desire for young people remains absent in many contexts, despite calls for its inclusion for more than two decades. This paper offers a synthesis of expert opinion to outline the importance of pleasure and positive SRE to sexual health, rights, equality and safeguarding against coercion and harm. The paper acknowledges the often uneasy associations between sexuality, education and youth by identifying key political and academic debates, before offering a rationale on ways forward that may help persuade curriculum gatekeepers of its merits. Analysis focuses mainly on young women with reflections on current knowledge and the need for more empirically based research and theorising on boys and men. Policy developments relate to the UK, though issues raised have direct relevance for contexts where SRE is similarly contested.     

A study of young lesbian and gay people’s school experiences

This retrospective study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore young lesbian and gay (LG) people’s experiences of school in relation to their sexuality and their perceptions of how schools could be inclusive for young LG people. Participants were in the age range of 16 to 21 and provided insights into coping strategies, responses to being gay and advice they would give to other young LG people. Many participants felt schools might face problems as they support young LG people. Participants suggested numerous practical ways that schools could be inclusive of young LG people. This article includes implications for educational psychologists (EPs) and local authorities (LAs).     

Framing young people’s educational transitions: the role of local and contemporary economic contexts

Despite rates of participation in post-compulsory full-time education reaching approximately 84% in Wales, social class inequalities continue to shape young people’s transitions from compulsory to post-compulsory education. This article draws upon data from a project which explored how young people’s educational decisions and transitions in Wales, UK are influenced by national economic landscapes, the popular narratives framing them and the structure of local employment opportunities. The analyses revealed that young people from similar social class backgrounds, but living in different localities, make very different sorts of transition from compulsory to post-compulsory education; in essence, they are either ‘pushed’ or they ‘jump’ into post-16 education. The article aims overall to contribute both empirically and theoretically to understandings of the complexity of educational decision-making, revealing how class and location intersect to frame decision-making processes, in so doing producing and reproducing educational inequalities.     

‘Participatory parity’, young people and policy in Scotland

The last three decades have witnessed significant changes in the social and economic context of young people’s lives. There is increasing evidence that for young people growing up in the UK, this is fuelling a disparity between those with resources and those without. What this means in terms of social justice, however, is difficult to discern. In Scotland, promoting greater social justice so that all its citizens are included has been held up as a key vision of successive Scottish administrations since devolution began in 1999. Scotland therefore makes an interesting case for the examination of policy discourses in relation to young people. In order to do this, the paper draws on a theoretical framework of justice developed by Nancy Fraser which is oriented on the norm of participatory parity. Combining this framework with an approach informed by critical discourse analysis, the current policy context in Scotland is examined in order to discern if it contributes to all young people achieving participatory parity and subsequently social justice.     

Imagining a different life in school: educating student teachers about ‘looked after’ children and young people

The research described in this paper concerns the acquaintance of student teachers with the educational and wider pastoral experiences of children and young people who are or have been ‘looked after’ and who they may well teach at some point, together with the familiarisation of student teachers with the ‘looked after’ system in the UK. We discuss an exploratory awareness‐raising curriculum project within a Teacher Education Department at a University in the UK that utilises digital multimedia to develop a ‘community of awareness’ of young people and student teachers. As a result of this work, the student teachers were able to reflect on their pedagogical knowledge and practices related to teaching and wider pupil pastoral care. Further, those involved in the project therefore not only learned how to use technology, but to apply it in meaningful, productive ways, which were potentially transforming in terms of appreciation and knowledge of diversity. Benefits for the participants – the young people involved and the student teachers, as well as implications for both student teachers’ understanding of diversity and limitations of the technology – are discussed.     

‘More than boy,girl, male,female’: exploring young people’s views on gender diversity within and beyond school contexts

Abstract

This paper explores the views of young people aged 12–14 on gender diversity, drawing upon school-based qualitative data from a study conducted in England in 2015–2016. Although earlier feminist and queer research in schools often found evidence of variable local gender cultures and gender non-conformity, we argue that the contemporary context, with its increasing global awareness of gender diversity, offers young people significant new ways of learning about and doing gender. Findings reveal that many young people have expanded vocabularies of gender identity/expression; critical reflexivity about their own positions; and principled commitments to gender equality, gender diversity and the rights of gender and sexual minorities. We also show how young people are negotiating wider cultures of gendered and sexual violence. Schools are providing some spaces and learning opportunities to support gender and sexual diversity. However, overall, it appears that young people’s immediate social cultural worlds are constructed in such a way that gender binary choices are frequently inevitable, from school uniforms and toilets to sports cultures and friendships. Our conclusion touches on the implications of these findings for how educational practitioners, external agencies and young people can address gender rights, equality and justice in schools and beyond.     

‘Due to all this fear,we’re getting less freedom’: young people’s understandings of gender and sexual violence in New Delhi,India

This paper explores young people’s understandings of gender and sexual violence in New Delhi, India, based on multi-method research conducted with young people (aged 15–17) in three co-educational secondary schools. Fieldwork took place shortly after the 2012 Delhi gang rape that sparked widespread debates about violence against women in India, and so sexual violence became an important frame for students’ discussions around gender and sexuality. Young people’s understandings are considered within gender narratives – of ‘can-do’ and ‘vulnerable’ girlhood, and of ‘hero’ and ‘good boy’ masculinities – which already shaped their day-to-day experiences of schooling. Findings suggest that tensions arising from these often contradictory narratives led to frustrations among girls, while the dominance of conversations about sexual violence led to confusions in both girls’ and boys’ understandings of sexuality. Reflections are offered on ways schools can better support young people as they learn about gender and sexuality from diverse and contradictory sources.     

‘That happened to me too’: young people’s informal knowledge of diverse genders and sexualities

Abstract

This paper explores how young people of diverse genders and sexualities share information about sex, sexualities and genders. Formal approaches to education often fail to consider young people’s communication and information exchange practices, including the circulation of peer knowledge through social media. In the wake of recent Australian backlash against the Safe Schools Coalition, we can observe how homophobia and queerphobia in the broader community can impact upon young peoples’ ability to learn about themselves and their bodies through formal education. Yet young people of diverse genders and sexualities can be observed to support each other in peer spaces, utilising their knowledge networks. This paper explores young people’s informal learning practices, the capacity of peer networks to support and educate young people, and the challenges of recognising such networks in a culture in which health and education discourses present them as ‘risk subjects’ rather than ‘health agents’. These issues are discussed in relation to our own experiences in research and health promotion, including one author’s role as a youth peer educator. Drawing on our workplace experiences, we provide a number of anecdotal examples which highlight the complexities of informal knowledge practice and information circulation, and the ways these can challenge and reform professional health, education, and research approaches.     

Transgender young people’s narratives of intimacy and sexual health: implications for sexuality education

Abstract

Sexuality education as pedagogy is often fraught by the perceived requirement to balance the informational needs of young people with an investment in notions of childhood ‘innocence’. Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in sexuality education that seeks to be inclusive of transgender young people, often resulting in the failure of such education to address the needs of such students. In an attempt at addressing the relative dearth of information about what transgender young people would like to see covered in sexuality education, in this paper we explore transgender young people’s accounts of intimacy and sexual health and consider what this means for school-based sexuality education. To do this, we analyse discussions of intimacy from the perspectives of transgender young people as narrated in a sample of YouTube videos. We conclude by advocating for an approach to sexuality education that largely eschews the gendering of body parts and gametes, and which instead focuses on function, so as to not only address the needs of transgender young people (who may find normative discussions of genitals distressing), but to also provide cisgender young people with a more inclusive understanding of their own and other people’s bodies and desires.     

‘You get some very archaic ideas of what teaching is … ’: primary school teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to physically active lessons

Physically active lessons present a key paradigm shift in educational practice. However, little is known about the barriers to implementing physically active lessons. To address this, 31 practising primary teachers (23?=?female) from 9 primary schools across West Yorkshire, England, were engaged in focus group interviews. Drawing on the socio-ecological model, findings revealed that barriers influencing the implementation of physically active lessons are multifaceted. Teacher’s confidence and competence, concerns over classroom space, preparation time and resources, coupled with the wider school culture that is influenced by governors and parents, reinforce a didactic approach and act as barriers to physically active lessons.     

The Swedish ‘people’s school’ in Finland and the language question: homogenization and differentiation

This paper presents an historical overview of issues around the language of instruction and the curriculum of mother‐tongue education for the Swedish‐speaking minority in Finland during the half‐century after the establishment of the public school in 1866. In a linguistic‐ and culturally‐diverse society like that of Finland it has not been self‐evident that the question of language as a medium of instruction and as a school subject would be understood and shared in the same way by Finns and Swedes. This paper focuses on two collective themes, homogenization and differentiation. Homogenization stands for forces aiming at securing equal opportunities for education, regardless of vernacular languages and cultures. Differentiation refers to the possibility of accommodating the education to specific needs of the Swedish‐speaking population.