‘Sex education should be taught,fine…but we make sure they control themselves’: teachers' beliefs and attitudes towards young people's sexual and reproductive health in a Ugandan secondary school

Although schools have been identified as important settings in which young people's sexual and reproductive health (SRH) can be promoted, there has been limited research into the role of teachers in delivering sex education programmes. This paper describes findings from a qualitative study of teachers' beliefs and attitudes towards young people's SRH in a Ugandan secondary school, and discusses the ways in which conservative attitudes to young people's sexual activity and an adherence to gender stereotypes can limit students' access to SRH information and services. Teachers' attitudes, beliefs and often superstitions relating to young people's sexual activity inevitably affect the content and nature of school-based sex education. Findings from this preliminary study suggest that, rather than assuming teachers act as neutral delivery mechanisms in schools, these attitudes and beliefs must be taken into consideration and addressed in the development of school-based sex education programmes.     

Parent and family influences on young women's romantic and sexual decisions

Parents can play an important role in reducing their children's risk for teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and in promoting sexual health during adolescence. The purpose of this study was to explore communication between parents, family members and young people and how it influences their romantic and sexual behaviours. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 African American, American Indian, Euro-American and Latina women aged 19–29 years. Findings clustered into five themes. First, mothers were often the primary source of reproductive education. Second, fathers provided valuable guidance, although they were not the first source of information. Third, parental expectations influenced young people's sexual behaviours both positively and negatively. Fourth, aunts, uncles and grandparents were trusted sources of advice for personal discussions. Fifth, over one-third of participants perceived that there was no adult available to them during their teenage years for discussions about romance. Sex educators can encourage and guide parents to discuss romantic and sexual issues with young people as a way to support their young people's healthy sexual and romantic behaviours. Health and sex educators should also identify young people lacking support and encourage stronger relationships with family including fathers and extended family members.     

Sexual and reproductive health among young people in Egypt: the role and contribution of youth-friendly services

Young people aged 15–24 constitute about one quarter of the population in Egypt. Recent survey findings provide evidence to advocate for the improvement of the number and quality of services targeting young people's needs. This study focused on the role of youth-friendly clinics in addressing young people's sexual and reproductive health. The study methodology included desk review, in-depth interviews with physicians and peer educators, and focus group discussions with young people of both sexes, including clinic beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The overall environment for sex education and service provision has improved in recent years. Pilot government and non-government youth-friendly clinics have been established but their coverage and use remain limited, with the majority of service users being married women rather than single men and women. The role of youth-friendly clinics in addressing youth sexual and reproductive health needs remains restricted due to societal reluctance to address these issues and cultural and religious sensitivities. Government commitment is required to scale up pilot clinics into a national programme to improve the welfare of all young people.     

Parental attitudes about teenage pregnancy: impact on sexual risk behaviour of African-American youth

African-American youth suffer disproportionately from sexual risk consequences including unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Parents educating young people about sex may be one approach to reduce sexual risk behaviour among this population. The purpose of this study was to determine young people's perceptions of parents' attitudes about sex and assess whether these perceptions affect sexual risk. Data were collected from 560 African-Americans, aged 9–19 years. Most (73.4%) thought their parents would be unhappy if they got someone pregnant/got pregnant, with more girls feeling this way than boys (p = 0.013). Sexually active boys who thought their parents would be unhappy if they got someone pregnant reported fewer sexual partners within the past year (p < 0.01) and fewer sexual encounters in the past 3 months (p = 0.01) compared to those whose parents would think otherwise. Our research illustrates that parents' explicit and unstated attitudes are apparent to their offspring, and young people's perceptions can impact their risk behaviour. As such, early and often sex education communication between parents and young people should be encouraged. Sexual health interventions encouraging parents to educate about sex and its consequences could enhance the health of young African-Americans.     

Evaluating the need for sex education in developing countries: sexual behaviour,knowledge of preventing sexually transmitted infections/HIV and unplanned pregnancy

Young people's need for sex education is evidenced by their typically early initiation of sexual activity, the often involuntary context within which they have sexual intercourse, high‐risk sexual behaviours and the inadequate levels of knowledge of means of protecting their sexual health. The earliness of initiation of sexual intercourse has implications for the age by which sexuality education should be provided. The extent and context of sexual behaviour is a firm indicator of the need for sex education as well as for counselling, information and services related to sexual and reproductive health. Apart from behaviours, information on the extent of knowledge and accuracy of knowledge about risks to sexual health and about means of preventing unhealthy or undesired outcomes are important indicators of young people's need for information to help them make choices and to engage in safe and healthy behaviours. Such measures of behaviour and knowledge can also be relevant and valid indicators of the effectiveness of sex education interventions. The context with which young people live and key characteristics such as school attendance and literacy are important considerations in providing information and in evaluating interventions.     

How they got it and how they wanted it: marginalised young people's perspective on their experiences of sexual health education

Young people in Australia are at greatest risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, and priority actions are necessary for this population group. This study of marginalised and at-risk young people in out-of-school environments was conducted in Western Australia with the aim of obtaining young people's perceptions about their experience of sexual health education and preferred means of gaining sexual health knowledge and skills. A participatory research methodology was implemented through a series of workshops with 88 young people recruited through community youth agencies. The results of the study support what is already known about sexual health promotion for young people and the importance of a holistic approach to promoting positive relationships and sexual health. However, the findings emphasise that this should include the need for demonstrated trust, confidence and safe environments, and the complementary role of community youth agencies and peer-based programmes which may play an important role in reaching young people who may disengage with, or not be reached by school-based sexual health education.     

Editorial

Twelve focus groups were conducted with African-American and Latino youth (age 14-19) in Washington, DC to inform the development of a program to postpone sexual involvement among younger teens (age 12-14). The study's objectives were to uncover the prime motivators for early sexual involvement, examine attitudes towards pregnancy and contraception, explore peer and family influences on sexual decision-making, and identify the youth's preferred sources of information and advice on sexual matters. The data suggest that sex is a peer norm for these youth and generally begins by age 15 or before. The prime motivator for early sex among the young women appears to be social pressures from boyfriends, peers and even older siblings. In contrast, young men seem to be more motivated by physical desire, and draw a clear distinction between relationships that are exclusively sexual and those that are more serious and romantic. Early pregnancy was universally viewed as undesirable, but not always as a hindrance to one's future. While motivation to avoid pregnancy appears to be less pronounced among the African-American youth, potential barriers to contraceptive use seem prominent in both groups due to strong negative opinions about the safety and efficacy of various methods. Condoms are viewed as being appropriate for casual sexual encounters, but not for longer, more established relationships. Parents received mixed reviews as sources of information and guidance on sexual matters. Latino youth were more likely than African-Americans to view parents as being influential in their sexual decision-making, but appear less likely to rely on them for information and advice. All youth preferred clinics to schools for sex education and related services. Overall, these data signal the need for interventions that generate peer support for delaying sex and pregnancy, correct misinformation about contraceptives, and encourage frank, open discussions between youth and their parents or other caring adults.     

Unzip the Truth: Results from the Fort Peck Men's Sexual Health Intervention and Evaluation Study

American Indian (AI) men experience sexual and reproductive health disparities including sexually transmitted infections, unplanned pregnancy, absent fatherhood, and intimate relationship violence. Using a case-control study within a community-based participatory research framework, we investigated the effectiveness of a sexual and reproductive health peer led education intervention model for AI men, ages 18–24. Intervention results demonstrated the greatest impact on attitudes regarding contraceptives, commitment in relationships, and consistency of condom use. Our study provides insights into how to access education and influence sexual risk behaviors among a diverse group of hard to reach young adult males.     

Flirting,dating, and breaking up within new media environments

Although romantic and sexual relationships are an important aspect of young people's lives, research on how young people negotiate their love/sex relationships is lacking. New media environments provide a new context within which young people negotiate their love/sex relationships; however, what is negotiated is often not all that different from what was negotiated before the advent of new media technologies. Using an online discussion board and individual in-person interviews, this paper explores how young Australians, aged 18–25 years, engage with dominant gendered discourses to negotiate their love/sex relationships within the context of new media environments. Previous research suggests that young people make use of new media technologies to flirt with one another, to initiate new relationships, to maintain their relationships, and to fight and end their relationships. This paper focuses on young people's practices of mediated flirting, surveillance, and breaking up. It considers the creative and agentic ways young people use new media technologies in the negotiation of their love/sex relationships.     

Developing sexual competence? Exploring strategies for the provision of effective sexualities and relationships education

School‐based sexualities and relationships education (SRE) offers one of the most promising means of improving young people's sexual health through developing ‘sexual competence’. In the absence of evidence on whether the term holds the same meanings for young people and adults (e.g. teachers, researchers, policy‐makers), the paper explores ‘adult’ notions of sexual competence as construed in research data and alluded to in UK Government guidance on SRE, then draws on empirical research with young people on factors that affect the contexts, motivations and outcomes of sexual encounters, and therefore have implications for sexual competence. These data from young people also challenge more traditional approaches to sexualities education in highlighting disjunctions between the content of school‐based input and their reported sexual experience. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these insights for developing a shared notion of what SRE is trying to achieve and suggestions for recognition in the content and approaches to SRE.     

Social violence and the trivialising effects of youth in school bullying: Extended listening to South Australian young people on bullying and violence

School bullying attracts significant research and resources globally, yet critical questions are being raised about the long-term impact of these efforts. There is a disconnect between young people's perspectives and the long-established psychology-based technical definitions of school bullying dominating practice and policy in Australia. This dominant paradigm has recently been described as the first paradigm of school bullying. In contrast, this paper explores the potential for reorienting school bullying research towards the concerns of young people and away from adult-derived technical definitions. Borrowing from paradigm two, which emphasises the social, cultural and philosophical (among others) elements of school bullying, in this paper, I approach bullying under the broad banner of ‘social violence’. This approach addresses some of the inherent limitations of the first paradigm to conceptualise social and cultural dynamics. I argue that a ‘social violence’ approach reveals that the exclusionary effects of the social phenomenon of youth continue to be overlooked. Furthermore, the term ‘violence’ in bullying research could benefit from integrating contemporary sociological insights on this phenomenon. This paper draws on qualitative insights from a small group of young people in secondary schooling in South Australia gained through prolonged listening to peer conversations in a series of focus groups. In addition, 1:1 interviews were conducted pre and post the focus group series. I argue that these participants' insights reveal the exclusionary effects of youth and the employment of bullying to trivialise young people's experiences and concern for harm. There is a need to reprioritise young people's knowledge in school bullying research and the exclusionary effects of youth alongside other social forces.     

Barriers and facilitators to health behaviour change and economic activity among slum-dwelling adolescent girls and young women in Nairobi,Kenya: the role of social,health and economic assets

Adolescent girls and young women in urban slum areas in developing countries face a myriad of challenges regarding education, sexual health, livelihoods and gender-based violence. One way of understanding how these challenges interact with each other is through the Asset Building Framework, which posits that girls need a combination of social, health and economic assets in order to make a healthy transition from childhood to adulthood. This study sought to examine barriers and facilitators to health behaviour change and economic activity for girls within the context of this framework. It involved a combination of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with 128 young women who were in the age range of 18–25 years, living in various slums in Nairobi, Kenya. We found that economic assets reduce young women's dependence on others (especially parents and relationships with men) so that they are able to make positive changes in health behaviour. Social networks, self-esteem and financial literacy all played important roles in positively positioning girls to make the transition to economic activity safely and successfully. We suggest that programmes that seek to improve girls’ and young women's health behaviour or economic activity include elements of asset building within all three categories of assets.     

Reviews

Introduction: Despite government support of culturally appropriate sex and relationships education (SRE), young people's access to information is limited and sexual health needs are not being met, particularly among youth from black and minority ethnic groups. Joint‐working between health, education, voluntary sectors and parents has been heralded as key in redressing inequalities in sexual health outcomes and access to information. Our study focuses on SRE provision for young Muslim Bangladeshis, highlighting the complexities involved in streamlining SRE messages.

Objective: To explore stakeholder views about SRE and ways to improve SRE delivery.

Design: Sixteen semi‐structured interviews were conducted in 2005 with stakeholders from schools, National Health Service, and parent and voluntary sector bodies in a London borough.

Results: Two key factors enhancing Bangladeshi youth's risk of infection and unwanted pregnancy were identified: inadequate parental understanding about sexual health and limited parent‐delivered SRE; and patchy provision of culturally appropriate, school‐based SRE. Factors affecting SRE provision included culturally rooted perceptions of sex/sexuality and limited participation of stakeholders, (religious leaders, parents), in developing and delivering SRE.

Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of widespread community engagement, underlining that joint‐working, and the development and delivery of culturally appropriate and consistent SRE, necessitates communication and collaboration among stakeholders in young people's health and well‐being.     

Closing Sex Education's Knowledge/Practice Gap: The reconceptualisation of young people's sexual knowledge

In rethinking what is theoretically conceived as a 'gap' between what young people learn in sexuality education and what they do in practice, this article argues for the need to comprehend young people's sexual knowledge from their own conceptualisation of this. Drawing on empirical findings from research with New Zealanders aged 17-19, young people's own understandings of their sexual knowledge are explored. These findings indicate how young people in the study conceptualised sexual knowledge in two ways: as information derived from secondary sources such as sexuality education, and knowledge gleaned from personal sexual experience. Hierarchies were evident within and between such types of sexual knowledge, in terms of the status young people afforded, and the interest they displayed in them. The type of sexual knowledge young people were most interested in, and which they identified as lacking in sexuality education, centred on a 'discourse of erotics'. It is argued that the inclusion of this discourse within sexuality education programmes might offer one way of closing the knowledge/practice gap, by raising the status of sexuality education's messages for young people and drawing this information closer to their lived sexual experiences.     

Without Sex Education: Exploring the social and sexual vulnerabilities of rural Bangladeshi girls and boys

In 1997, two organizations, BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) and ICDDR,B (International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research), as part of their collaborative research model, developed an HIV/AIDS prevention strategy for rural Bangladeshi youth. Currently, HIV/AIDS is not apparent in rural Bangladesh. Other sexual and reproductive health problems are more pressing. Moreover, there are few inor out-of-school sex education programs for adolescents in Bangladesh. Therefore, preliminary qualitative research was conducted to understand the broad parameters of sexual and reproductive health within the sociocultural context of young people's risks and vulnerabilities. Exploratory research revealed that youth were vulnerable to sexual diseases, late-term abortions, sexual violence, reproductive tract infections, and premarital pregnancies. Adolescents and adults thought that youth today need sex education. Adults said that youth should not be educated about condom use because this would conflict with a girl's prospects for an arranged marriage. Bangladeshi youth today are being exposed to experiences unfamiliar to their parents. Lacking appropriate knowledge, information and awareness about sexual and reproductive health unduly heightens young people's fears, and increases their social and sexual vulnerabilities.     

Environmental learning in online social networks: adopting environmentally responsible behaviors

Online social networks are increasingly important information and communication tools for young people and for the environmental movement. Networks may provide the motivation for young adults to increase environmental behaviors by increasing their knowledge of environmental issues and of the specific actions they can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This study examined an application within Facebook.com – the largest online social network in the world – that allowed users to post climate change news stories from other websites and comment on those stories. A survey revealed that users of the social networking application reported above average knowledge of climate change science and that self‐reported environmental behaviors increased during young people's involvement with the Facebook application. Focus groups indicated that peer role modeling through interaction on the site motivated pro‐environmental behaviors, that is, behavior that seeks to minimize the negative impact of one's actions on the natural and built world. Participation in a community of like‐minded users spurred many participants to learn more about climate change and do more to limit its impact.     

Endpiece

Preparing children and adolescents for sexual safety and reproductive responsibility lies at the heart and purpose of puberty/sexuality education. The document of International Technical Guidance released by UNESCO in December 2009 aims to provide an evidence-based and rights-based platform offering children and adolescents vital knowledge about relationships, sexuality, reproduction and HIV/AIDS, within a structured teaching and learning process in the compulsory school years. The document, targeted at education and health sector decision-makers and professionals, includes evidence and expert advice on the importance of sexuality education, its implementation in schools, its age-appropriate topics, useful resources, and steps for key stakeholders. This study investigates and analyses the International Technical Guidance for its relevant, appropriate and contemporaneous educational response to the challenges of young people's sexual and reproductive health and protection, and its potential impact on Australian curricula at a time of national review.     

A meta-ethnographic understanding of children and young people's experiences of extended school non-attendance

The views of the children and young people experiencing Extended School Non-Attendance difficulties are scarcely represented in the literature. This systematic literature review provides a much needed overview of the existing research evidence through a detailed synthesis of the lived experiences of persistently non-attending young people, using a meta-ethnographic approach. Ten qualitative, UK-based papers were selected and analysed, each of which focused specifically on the direct views of school non-attenders. Using Noblit and Hare's seven-step approach, the analysis generated seven themes: (1) difficult relationships with peer group; (2) inconsistent relationships with and support from adults; (3) negative experiences of school transition; (4) negative experiences of learning in school; (5) emotional wellbeing and mental health needs; (6) others' negative perceptions of the individual's needs; (7) personal beliefs about attendance. Through reciprocal translation of these themes, the overarching higher-order concept was developed relating to the impact of a sense of school belonging. The implications of this review include an enhanced emphasis on the need to gather young people's views early and to use their preferred terminology when discussing their difficulties. While outside the scope of this paper, further research should look to the translation into policy and practice in this area.     

Vulnerable young people and post-16 educational aspirations during Covid-19

This study used a longitudinal, probability sample survey, Understanding Society Covid-19, to examine young people's post-16 educational aspirations at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a particular emphasis on four vulnerable groups (namely, young carers; Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people; young people with long-term illness and disability; and people with internalising and externalising behavioural difficulties). The findings from this study showed young carers and young people with health conditions to be less likely to choose A levels, despite reporting roughly equal levels of school engagement and school-related support. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the obstacles often faced by young carers and young people with pre-existing health conditions and behaviour difficulties. It is hoped that the findings will contribute to debates about social care and education and will have implications for public policy and action, especially as public services are under enormous strain and are less likely to reach those who need them most.     

Respecting Respect: Exploring a great deal

For some people, respect is due to people of particular standing and involves formality and deference. For others, respect is based on regard and attention. This approach is essentially informal. This article explores young people's interpretations of respect and shows how an understanding of its theory and practice may enhance relationships between adults, especially those employed in the social professions, and young people. Two frameworks are employed to assist in exploring the issues involved; one is located in communication theory within educational contexts (Burbules, 1993) and the other in the politics of self-definition (Wilson, 1993). The discussion draws on three pieces of empirical research involving young people and professionals. The different interpretations of respect are shown to provide a means of understanding a source of conflict between professionals with positions of authority in young people's lives and the young people themselves.