#ByeTaboo: Expanding the Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Education

Herbst, Natalia

doi:10.19088/1968-2017.105

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…We reviewed the study's characteristics, study design, digital strategies mentioned, and its main findings (See also Annex 2). Of the 26 papers, 16 are on digital strategies in LMIC [23,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. Five papers related specifically to urban settings [34,43,[48][49][50], of which one on informal settlements [42].…”

Section: "Rough" or Starter Iptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, four studies were reports describing interventions [34,35,40,41], while two papers presented literature reviews [23,56]. Four publications were commentaries with empirical content [39,54,57,58].…”

Section: "Rough" or Starter Iptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Progressive governments tend to sponsor the development of the tool. In other programmes, local government authorities, the police, or policy makers are considered as targets for advocacy, or groups who should be held to account through the data generated by the programmes [39]. In addition, state actor interests to be engaged in digital technology might differ significantly from adolescents' needs.…”

Section: Zooming In On the Actors Besides The Adolescentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Realist-Informed Review of Digital Empowerment Strategies for Adolescents to Improve Their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Well-being

2022

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The use of digital technologies for health has been rapidly gaining ground in the last decade, including as a strategy to empower adolescents living in urban resource-constrained settings. Nevertheless, unclarity and incoherence remain regarding which programme strategies generate which outcomes, as well as regarding the importance of context. We set out to answer the question “How do digital empowerment strategies work to improve adolescent health and well-being?”. We conducted a realist-informed review, the first on this subject matter to our knowledge. The realist methodology is geared towards the understanding of socially complex interventions, such as digital empowerment. We synthesized the data into a programme theory uncovering social mechanisms and context conditions underlying specific programme strategies. We found that digital technologies enlarge the space for adolescents to access information to health services on their own terms and provide anonymity, which leads to a sense of safety if access is not curbed by gatekeepers. If adolescents have access to information adapted to their needs, they will be able to make informed decisions, and this will contribute to improved health outcomes because their better understanding enlarges their sense of individual agency. We identified two main gaps in the literature on digital interventions for adolescents. Both are related to an under-theoretisation of the concepts the programmes rely on in implementation: (1) the urban environment the programme has to operate in and its meaning for the adolescents; (2) the socio-developmental stage of the adolescents the programmes work in.

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Section: "Rough" or Starter Iptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "Rough" or Starter Iptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Zooming In On the Actors Besides The Adolescentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Realist-Informed Review of Digital Empowerment Strategies for Adolescents to Improve Their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Well-being

2022

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“…Muller et al (2017), for instance, show that creative strategies, particularly visual ones, are needed to evade governmental or platform censorship. However, quite often the chosen path is precisely to use more 'scientific' and medical language, even if targeting young people (Herbst, 2017), as this would give more credibility and appears to be more 'neutral' and less 'activist'. Other experiences of sexual education through Instagram in the Brazilian context (Castro, 2020;Silva dos Santos, 2021) are not nearly as explicit in their language.…”

Section: Vintage and Yet So Modern: Contrasts Between Text And Imagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In present-day Brazil, creators -including SENTA's -often complain about what is considered offensive on each social media or a violation of community guidelines. This is a common complaint among sex-ed digital providers, even when a project is State-sponsored (Muller et al, 2017;Herbst, 2017). criticises the automated algorithms' double standards and reaffirms SENTA's political position.…”

Section: Being Radical On Social Media: How To Deal With Algorithmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Pleasant Ride: Vintage Aesthetics as a Strategy to Deliver Sex Education and Harm Reduction on Instagram

Soares¹

2022

Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change

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This article discusses the possibilities and limitations of delivering transformative sex education and harm reduction on highly regulated platforms such as Instagram and what are helpful strategies in this process. I use the Brazilian project Sento Mesmo (SENTA) as a case study. SENTA is a multiplatform project that uses vintage aesthetics and deploys explicit language to address its topics. It is an activist project as it challenges current paradigms, particularly the way sex-ed and drugs are hegemonically addressed, and targets groups excluded from public policies. SENTA is explicitly inspired by Freirean pedagogies, and I argue it can be framed as pleasure activism (brown, 2019) as it understands sexuality as more than just a site of oppression and as an indissociable part of our lives.<br /> Through a mixed-methods approach that included content analysis and a semi-structured interview with the creator, I analysed SENTA’s content to understand the creative strategies chosen to evade Instagram’s ban or censorship. There are intentional and numerous contrasts: between text (explicit) and images (vintage, evoking the “good old times”), present and past, invisibility and visibility. In sum, visual, textual and engagement concessions have to be made to be able to circulate in such a highly regulated environment, but such concessions can still be filled with meaning. In SENTA’s case, the contrasts create a dialogue whilst trying to balance attractiveness for the readers and being harmless to the algorithms. This constant dialogue between past and present also reaffirms SENTA’s political alignment, including its alignment with historical LGBT actors in the country. I conclude that despite SENTA’s content being very context-specific, its strategies can be applied elsewhere, and become more important as public policies and traditional sex-ed approaches continue to overlook people who do not comply with every single norm.

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A qualitative approach to interrogating the age and gender divide in digital SRHR platforms in Kenya

Njagi

2023

Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters

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Adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR) programmes for 10–17-year-old adolescents in many African contexts are school-based and often aim to manage the risks associated with adolescent sexuality. Such programmes are critiqued for adopting pathologising, biomedical, moralistic and/or authoritarian approaches. Critiques of conventional ASRHR initiatives and technological advancements have resulted in an increased use of digital technologies to facilitate ASRHR. However, there is a gender and age divide whereby adolescent minors, particularly girls, remain excluded, unreached, or unable to exercise their agency. Despite the existence of a gender and age divide in digital SRH platforms, the divide remains uninterrogated. Data were collected in four phases from November 2019 to April 2022 using a qualitative mixed methods design that included review of online information and communication technology (ICT)-based sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) websites and platforms, 18 interviews with implementers of the platforms, and seven focus group discussions with adolescent girls. Even though ICTs have demonstrated their ability to navigate socio-cultural tensions surrounding SRHR, an age and gender divide poses a barrier for them to achieve this anticipated potential as adolescent girls below the age of 18 have the least access in Kenya. Socio-cultural norms surrounding adolescent sexuality in Kenya continue to inform ASRHR policies and programmes that exclude 10–17-year-old girls, particularly those in low-income urban contexts. Such exclusionary norms permeate digital spaces, inhibiting the potential of digital spaces to offer comprehensive and holistic services to adolescent girls who are not legally adult.

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#ByeTaboo: Expanding the Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Education

Cited by 4 publications

References 7 publications

A Realist-Informed Review of Digital Empowerment Strategies for Adolescents to Improve Their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Well-being

A Realist-Informed Review of Digital Empowerment Strategies for Adolescents to Improve Their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Well-being

A Pleasant Ride: Vintage Aesthetics as a Strategy to Deliver Sex Education and Harm Reduction on Instagram

A qualitative approach to interrogating the age and gender divide in digital SRHR platforms in Kenya

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