Desire as interruption: young women and sexuality education in Ontario,Canada

Danger and pleasure are terms commonly employed to describe women's sexual experiences, including those of young women. This paper explores how young women's sexual danger and pleasure are represented and characterized in official discourses, specifically those of school‐based sexuality education. Drawing on Michelle Fine's four major discourses of sexuality education, this paper uses the Ontario Curriculum and its companion Course Profiles to analyze school‐based sexuality education in Ontario, Canada. This paper describes how the discourses of victimization and individual morality dominate in the curriculum while the discourse of desire is largely absent. Because there is considerable emphasis on danger/victimization and insufficient attention paid to pleasure/desire, the paper concludes by describing how a discourse of desire might be included in sexuality education curriculum.     

Crossing ‘boundaries’ with the collective girl: a poetic intervention into sex education

Feminist poststructuralist approaches to research can authorize different ways of working with different types of texts in search of insight into the discursive constitution of subjects. In this paper I undertake a close reading of women's memories about early sexual experiences generated in a small collective biography workshop. The collective poetic text that emerges from the workshop is analysed in terms of recent feminist sociological research on girls' experiences of (hetero)sex and in terms of Foucault's work on power. Analysis reveals the discursive complexity and deep (and often dangerous) contradictions through which girls negotiate their shifting subjectivities as they become sexual. My readings of this text imply that school sex education programs might attend more closely to the ambiguities of agency and desire experienced by adolescent subjects of the curriculum. Finally, I suggest that reflexive readings of our own (sexed) subjectivities can be productive professional development strategies for teachers of sex education.     

The use and misuse of pleasure in sex education curricula

Since Michelle Fine's writing on the missing discourse of desire in sex education, there has been considerable prompting among sexuality educators and feminist scholars to incorporate talk of pleasure into sex education curricula. While the calls for inclusion continue, few have actually examined the curricula for a pleasure discourse or explored how it is contextualised within sex education curricula. In this paper, we analysed curricula used in the USA in the past decade. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed that the discourse around pleasurable sex was often linked to a range of dangerous or negative outcomes including not using condoms, rushing into sex without thinking, regretted sex, and pregnancy or STDs. When the discourse around pleasure was included in sections on ‘knowing one's body’, this discourse took a medicalised, scientific tone. Pleasurable sex was also presented in more positive ways, either linked to marriage in Abstinence Only Until Marriage curricula, or within a more feminist discourse about female pleasure in comprehensive sex education curricula. Our research indicates that a discourse of desire is not missing, but that this discourse was often situated as part of a discourse on safe practice and there, continues to equate pleasure with danger.     

‘We didn't cover that at school’: education against pleasure or education for pleasure?

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.     

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.     

Doing ‘it’ differently: relinquishing the disease and pregnancy prevention focus in sexuality education

Despite policy provision enabling sexuality education to address more than disease and pregnancy prevention, this focus continues to permeate many school programmes. This paper problematises the danger prevention emphasis in sexuality education, examines school's investment in it and asks how useful it is. The ways this kind of sexuality education may inhibit the reduction of ‘negative’ sexual outcomes and fail to support young people's sexual well‐being is explored. Suggesting sexuality education might be conceptualisxed without this danger prevention emphasis necessitates an exploration of what might replace it. Foucault's work around an ethics of pleasure is drawn on as one example of how the objectives of sexuality education might be re‐envisaged.     

Teaching sexual matters in Taiwan: the analytical framework for popular culture and youth sexuality education

Although most teachers realize the potential of using popular culture within the sexuality education classroom, incorporating it successfully is complex. Especially, how can teachers critically analyse the ideology contained in popular culture without lapsing into moralizing and design motivating activities? For teachers in Taiwan, whose training has involved abstinence-only sex education and discourse, avoiding such activities is an even greater challenge. This study attempts to present an analytical framework for development students' sexual literacy through popular culture to respond to these issues. The framework for using popular culture sexual literacy as a pedagogical tool enables teachers to shift from analysing popular culture itself to understanding the lessons regarding sexuality and gender that students derive from it. Using this analytic framework, teachers can establish an interesting and meaningful method to discuss sex and intimacy relationship issues and facilitate students' inquiry into the multiple understanding of sexuality and gender; especially in discussing and understanding the desire of adolescent girls. Through this framework, the true needs of students in sexuality education can be addressed. This pedagogical approach also relates the course content to the practical experiences of young students and alters student opinions on formal sexual education.     

‘I'm not a real risk-taker’: moral identity construction and sexual-risk perceptions among a group of young rural Tasmanians

Some young people are labelled more ‘at-risk’ of harming themselves through various behaviours, such as having sex, than others. However, such distinctions between young people are ambiguous, as youth itself is imagined as inherently risky. At-risk discourse has fuelled the existing links between youth and risk, and morality and risk. It has also impeded explanations of young people's sexual risk-taking. This article examines the stories that young rural Tasmanians (a group considered to be at sexual risk) tell about their experiences of safe and risky sex. A narrative analysis highlights the way that they perceive risk through the prism of self-identity. The participants' desire not to understand the self as a ‘real’ risk-taker inhibits them from imbuing their sex practices with significant risk. The findings suggest that sexual health research and safety promotion strategies may benefit from a shift away from at-risk rhetoric and a greater emphasis on the self-identity and risk perception nexus.     

“Your Vagina Is Not Supposed to Be This Scary Monster”: Young Heterosexual Women's Recommendations for Improving Sexual Satisfaction and Implications for Sexuality Education

Sexual satisfaction is an important component of sexuality, yet rarely discussed in sexuality education. In an effort to better understand young adult women's experiences and thoughts about sexual pleasure and satisfaction, we conducted interviews with heterosexual young women (N = 30, ages 18–25) attending college, asking their recommendations on how to improve women's sexual satisfaction. Two coders utilized grounded theory-based thematic analysis, which revealed three dominant themes: communication with sexual partners, sexual self-awareness and acceptance, and sources of information and education. All three themes fit broadly under women's sexual agency and societal acceptance of women's sexuality. Themes are discussed in relation to their applicability to sexuality education.     

‘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.     

Walking through Walls: the sexual harassment of high school girls

For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. What has not been explored is the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and the way it interferes with young women's education. Equal opportunity programmes are of limited use if, for example, we urge female students into traditional male courses but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explored young women's experiences of sexual harassment in the setting lauded as their gateway to opportunity: school. Based on their testimonies I make recommendations for educators who are committed to making high school a more equitable place for female students.     

Class,gender, (hetero)sexuality and schooling: paradoxes within working‐class girls’ engagement with education and post‐16 aspirations

This paper discusses the ways in which inner‐city, ethnically diverse, working‐class girls’ constructions of hetero‐femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. Drawing on data from a study conducted with 89 urban, working‐class young people in London, attention is drawn to three main ways through which young women used heterosexual femininities to construct capital and generate identity value and worth; namely, investment in appearance through ‘glamorous’ hetero‐femininities, heterosexual relationships with boyfriends, and the ‘ladettte’ discourse. We discuss how and why young women’s investments in particular forms of heterosexual working‐class femininity can play into their disengagement from education and schooling, drawing particular attention to the paradoxes that arise when these constructions play into other oppressive power relations.     

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.     

Beyond Plumbing and Prevention: feminist approaches to sex education

This article offers a feminist critique of existing sex education policies and programmes in Canada, as well as examining common right‐wing arguments against more progressive approaches. Two major forces shaping adolescent girls’ developing sexuality—male sexual violence and compulsory heterosexuality—are discussed, and recent initiatives in Ontario to introduce these issues into sex education programmes evaluated. Toronto Board of Education's new policy on sexual orientation and the Ontario Ministry of Education AIDS Education Curriculum are assessed and strategies for anti‐sexist, anti‐heterosexist sex education developed.     

Beyond Access: Considering gender deficits in science education

ABSTRACT Despite striking increases in female enrolments in many undergraduate science programmes, women continue to be dramatically underrepresented in graduate training and careers in science. Although there is substantial evidence of differences in male and female students' experiences in university science courses, we know little about how young women interpret and respond to these differences. This article explores the accounts that female science students construct of their aspirations, educational experiences, achievements, and opportunities as they move through their undergraduate education at a large, urban university in Canada. Based on in-depth, longitudinal interviews ( n = 91), the focus is on the processes through which they make sense of their educational and career options and choices. The findings point to the importance of understanding how meanings and subjectivities are produced, understood, and acted upon. What is evident from this study is that women in science confront a complex web of competing and contradictory realities and discourses as they negotiate their career identities. Thus, to stem the progressive and cumulative loss of female students as they move up through the levels of higher education, universities must address the problems they confront in their pursuit of science training before, during, and after their undergraduate education.     

Now I am NObody,see me for who I am: the paradox of performativity

This paper draws on data collected from young white middle class women experiencing eating disorders to highlight what we refer to as the paradox of performativity in schools. In interviews with these young women on their schooling experiences, their narratives convey both a critique of the social conditions of their schooling and their subjugated subjectivities, yet claim they are unable to ‘voice’ that critique within schools, or to resist performativity. In this paper, we explore this ambiguity and the implications it has for the subjectivities of young women. Such stories vividly reveal the painful and complex processes they endure in an effort to conform to performative cultures. The limits and possibilities of their ‘voice’ within these contexts, we suggest, reveals how performative discourse intersects with and is mediated by the embodied knowledge that both teachers and students bring to these educational encounters.     

Poles apart? Gender differences in proposals for sexuality education content

Are young women and men’s preferences for sexuality education content poles apart? This article explores gender differences in senior school students’ suggestions for issues sexuality education should cover. Findings are analysed in relation to debate about mixed and single sex classrooms and boys’ perceived disinterest in lessons. It is argued that young women and men’s content preferences were largely similar on items that a majority selected for inclusion. Topics less than half of participants named revealed a greater number of gender differences. Employing theoretical insights from feminist post‐structuralism, responses are also examined for how they position young people as sexual subjects and whether these conform to or deviate from perceptions of ‘conventional heterosexualities’. This examination enables an understanding of how young people view themselves as sexual and whether this matches their constitution within sexuality programmes. The implications of students’ content preferences and the way these position them as sexual subjects are considered for the possibilities they present for programme design and delivery.     

The making of entrepreneurial subjectivity in adult education

This article focuses on the idea of entrepreneurial subjectivity and the ways in which it is shaped by the entrepreneurial discourse in adult education. As a result, we argue that educational practices related to adults form a particular kind of ideal subjectivity that we refer to as entrepreneurial. In order to understand how this entrepreneurial discourse in adult education works, we will analyse how the young adults we have interviewed engage in the discourse and what effects this has for the construction of their subjectivities. Our joint empirical analysis is based on discourse-analytic methodology and on our previous empirical studies. Our research results suggest that participants in adult education end up constructing their subjectivities within the limits and possibilities of the entrepreneurial discourse that are made available to them. Embracing the entrepreneurial discourse construed in terms of autonomy and freedom, young people are expected to make a project out of their own subjectivities. As an effect, education as well as young adults’ autonomy is limited to a question of speaking in accordance with what is expected.     

‘Children of the street’: sexual citizenship and the unprotected lives of Ghanaian street youth

Youth-sensitive policies are gradually gaining recognition in Africa. The release of the recent publication Children in Ghana by the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC) and UNICEF-Ghana attests to the value the country places on young people's perspectives. Guided by Richardson's conceptual framework on sexual citizenship, this paper draws on four sets of focus group discussions, informal conversations and interviews with 24 young people aged between 14 and 19 (seven young men and 17 young women), all of whom were living on the streets of a city in Ghana. It shows how young people navigate sexuality in a context of poverty and in an era of HIV/AIDS. It argues that the young women's demonstration of a sense of agency, evident in the midst of violence and insecurity, contradicts the notion of childhood sexual innocence. These experiences challenge the view that human rights and sex education are sufficient strategies to address young people's transitions to a safe adulthood within impoverished contexts.     

Youth temporalities and the cost of Singapore's educational success

This article presents a different portrait of Singapore's educational success, using data collected from a qualitative in-depth interview study of a group of Singaporean youths, showing the cost of its education policies in terms of youth subjectivities. How the participants categorise their temporalities, that is, their lived experiences of time, shows how a modernistic temporality geared towards credentialist and materialist goals is regarded as more legitimate than temporalities such as creative becomings, engagement or coevalness. Juxtaposing the discourse of legitimate/illegitimate temporalities against the discourse of education reform, this article defamiliarises the ways in which temporalities are valorised. This article also highlights how, by promoting narrow forms of ‘love’ for the country, and ‘creative’ and ‘critical’ thinking, educational reform can manage subjectivities to accept, rather than contest, existing personal, national, and global realities.