Empowerment through sex education? Rethinking paradoxical policies

Abstract

Youth empowerment is the main goal of sex education according to Dutch Government and NGO policies. Academics from different disciplines have argued, however, that the ideal of empowerment through education is problematic, because of the unequal power relations implicated in educational practices. Building on one-anda-half years of online and offline ethnographic fieldwork among Dutch youth, this article argues that Dutch sex educational policies inhibit rather than encourage young people's empowerment by allowing only a limited number of sexual knowledge building practices to thrive while making others nearly impossible. In order to facilitate young people's empowerment, policies should aim to create space for young people to develop their own themes and priorities, to offer a multitude of perspectives, to set the pace and to use different strategies for sexual knowledge building, including learning by doing and online learning. This requires a cultural shift that involves both an openness to young people's experimentation, and a change in existing power hierarchies based on age.

A Rights-Based Approach to Youth Sexting: Challenging Risk, Shame, and the Denial of Rights to Bodily and Sexual Expression Within Youth Digital Sexual Culture

“…Instead, the emphasis is on a collaborative approach between adults and young people, in which they come together to rethink social issues and develop solutions. Naezer et al (2017) suggest that "sexual knowledge building" should replace "sex education" (p. 713). They conceptualise the former as less formal, didactic, and moralising than the latter, and more of a process focused on information, understanding, and contexts of learning.…”

Why teach sexuality education in school? Teacher discretion in implementing comprehensive sexuality education in rural Zambia

“…Studies in Botswana, Nigeria and South Africa have shown that sexuality education may contribute to overcoming the adolescents SRH challenges that Zambia and other countries face [15–17]. At the core of the Zambian sexuality education policy is the idea that there is a substantial need to support adolescents in delaying their sexual debut, to reduce the number of sexual partners and to increase safer sexual practices [15–17].…”

“…Studies in Botswana, Nigeria and South Africa have shown that sexuality education may contribute to overcoming the adolescents SRH challenges that Zambia and other countries face [15–17]. At the core of the Zambian sexuality education policy is the idea that there is a substantial need to support adolescents in delaying their sexual debut, to reduce the number of sexual partners and to increase safer sexual practices [15–17]. Backed by evidence on its positive effects on adolescents’ level of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values related to sex and sexuality, CSE has been promoted in a series of global policy guidelines and recommended to be integrated into ordinary school curricula [3, 15–17].…”

Strategies for inclusion and equality – ‘norm-critical’ sex education in Sweden

“…The tension between, on the one hand, a sex education that takes a stand for certain values and, on the other, tactics that strive to open up and involve students in a critical pedagogy, is not easily resolved and perhaps should not be resolved. However, we believe it is crucial to acknowledge these tensions and invite students to explore what we need to think and 'do differently' (Youdell 2011, 12, but see also Naezer, Rommes, and Jansen 2017;Sanjakdar et al 2015) in order to challenge social and sexual injustice, both within and outside school.…”

“…Scholars argue for the need for an empowering critical pedagogy, where students are the subjects rather than the objects subjected to adult regimes of sex education (Naezer, Rommes, and Jansen 2017). Scholars such as Sanjakdar et al (2015) emphasise that in order to implement such ideals, attention to the hegemony of teaching practices in this area, including aspects of authority and subordination, is central.…”