Sexuality Education: Finnish and Chilean Experiences

Abstract

All children and young people have the right to age-appropriate sexuality education regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ability or faith. Sexuality education provides knowledge, skills and positive values to determine and enjoy their sexuality, have safe, fulfilling relationships if one so wishes and decides, and to take responsibility for their own and for a possible partner's sexual health and well-being. Several international programs have been developed and recently published by the Population Council, IPPF and other coworkers, by UNICEF, and by WHO Europe. This chapter will briefly describe recent global development in sexuality education, and then, as examples, experience from two countries, Finland and Chile. The experiences from these school based programs suggest an important role of sexuality education.

Attitudes of adolescents towards sexual health in three cities from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Sexual education plays a fundamental role in raising healthy and risk‐aware young populations (Apter & Molina Cartes ). Previous research suggests that adolescents most commonly gain their knowledge about own sexuality and fertility from unreliable sources such as television, various popular magazines and oral tradition among their peers and older adolescents, both in less developed countries, such as those in the Southeast Europe (Matziou et al.…”

Uso de condón en estudiantes de pregrado de carreras sanitarias de la Universidad de Valparaíso: estudio transversal

“…Si bien se ha reconocido que la educación sexual durante el periodo escolar es sumamente relevante, los estudios dedicados a abordar las técnicas educativas y los programas de educación sexual implementados actualmente en Chile son insuficientes, lo que ha sido manifestado tanto por los estudiantes y los investigadores en el ámbito. Del mismo modo, los contenidos de los programas y las intervenciones en educación sexual a nivel secundario y superior se han concentrado sobre todo en el embarazo, olvidando aspectos gravitantes del desarrollo psicosexual como el conocimiento y la relación con la propia corporalidad así como con el placer, por lo que se ha enfatizado en mover el foco desde la educación en riesgo sexual hacia la educación en salud sexual [23][24][25] , ya que permitiría una comprensión integradora de la sexualidad y sería un enfoque práctico en cuanto a la reducción de desenlaces como las ITS y el embarazo no deseado 25,26 .…”

Mother-Child Relationship and Education on Sexuality

“…Young people need to be given the opportunity to acquire essential life skills and develop positive attitudes and values. (Apter & Cartes, 2012).…”

“…Besides that, sexuality education also as part of "promoting the well-being of adolescents, enhancing gender equality and equity as well as responsible sexual behavior, to protect them from early and unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases including human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV)/AIDS, and sexual abuse, incest and violence (Haberland & Rogow, 2015). Studies in Finland and Chile has suggested an important role of sexuality education in their country because there have evidently, there were reductions in the prevalence of pregnancies, with a very special emphasis on those terminated by an induced abortion or an abortion forced by parents or other relatives (Apter & Cartes, 2012). A study in Malaysia revealed almost half (49.3%) of the respondents agreed that sexual education might help to overcome the social illness among school teenagers (Mohd Mutalip & Mohamed, 2012) Moreover, other study has showed majority of adolescents i.e., 93.5% favors sex education.…”