Sexual Ideology And Schooling

Sexuality education in the schools has become a key battleground in the wider social conflict over the sexual norms of Western culture. In Sexual Ideology and Schooling, Alexander McKay conceptualizes the sexuality debates as a battle between two basic but diametrically opposed belief systems about the nature and purpose of sexuality in human life and society—Restrictive and Permissive. He outlines the philosophical/moral foundations of a democratic approach to teaching young people about sexuality and persuasively argues that public institutions, including the schools, should base public policy related to sexuality on democratic principles rather than the dictates of sexual ideology.

Presents a comprehensive analysis of the debates surrounding sexuality education in the schools and examines their implications for the content of educational programs.

In Schooling Sexualities, Debbie Epstein and Richard Johnson bring together contemporary debates about sexuality with the study of schooling. They pose controversial questions. How far is schooling influenced by wider public debates and scandals about sexuality? How can we understand the role and limits of moral traditionalism? What has the impact of feminism and the lesbian and gay movement been? How have these radical influences been recuperated? What part does schooling play in the production of sexual and other identities? Why is sex education in schools so 'impossible'? What are the strategies for improving it? They have written the first sustained study of these questions - accessible, engaging and argumentative. This will be a key text for teachers and policy makers, for those concerned with sexual and educational politics and for students of sexuality, gender, cultural studies and the history and sociology of education.

Originally published in 1993. This book takes the reader inside the contested issue of sex education by examining how a sexuality curriculum is actually taught to a ninth-grade health class and how it impacts on both the teacher and students. Drawing on observations and interviews with teachers, students, and other school personnel to capture the complexity and tension of lived classroom culture, this volume illustrates the dynamic, complex, and sometimes contradictory processes by which traditional versions of appropriate sexual behaviour and gender relations are legitimated as well as contested. The book describes in detail the classroom knowledge that is produced by the interactions between gendered, raced and classed students and teacher, the planned curriculum, and the social organisation of the school and community. The book also tackles the broader issues of how sex education should be taught and even whether it should be taught at all.

Educating children and adolescents in public schools about sex is a deeply inflammatory act in the United States. Since the 1980s, intense political and cultural battles have been waged between believers in abstinence until marriage and advocates for comprehensive sex education. In The Sex Education Debates, Nancy Kendall upends conventional thinking about these battles by bringing the school and community realities of sex education to life through the diverse voices of students, teachers, administrators, and activists. Drawing on ethnographic research in five states, Kendall reveals important differences and surprising commonalities shared by purported antagonists in the sex education wars, and she illuminates the unintended consequences these protracted battles have, especially on teachers and students. Showing that the lessons that most students, teachers, and parents take away from these battles are antithetical to the long-term health of American democracy, she argues for shifting the measure of sex education success away from pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates. Instead, she argues, the debates should focus on a broader set of social and democratic consequences, such as what students learn about themselves as sexual beings and civic actors, and how sex education programming affects school-community relations.

“Up-to-date and accessible, this book manages to be both theoretically subtle and attuned to the realities of classroom practice.†Dr Rachel Thomson, The Open University "[This] book is a great success and provides a wealth of insights into the realities of teaching and being taught about sex and relationships." Michael Reiss, Institute of Education What are the different values and perspectives on sex and relationship education within a single secondary school? How do young people think sex education should be taught? What are the challenges facing the provision of good sex and relationship education at the classroom level and at the political level? Young people often receive mixed messages about gender and sexual relationships. When providing sex education lessons, schools should take into account different ideas and values, including the general British embarrassment over intimate matters and differing political and personal views about sex education. This book combines young people’s views of sex education, schooling and parenthood, with those of teachers, school nurses and head-teachers. It brings together these varied perspectives and considers how they reveal different values, aims and agendas. The authors highlight the potential conflict between approaches to education and health, and reveal the complexity of dealing with sexuality and gender in real-life situations. Focusing on young people’s identities in the classroom, contemporary theoretical approaches in the social sciences are employed to explore how gender is enacted and experienced by individuals, and how social pressures and government agendas operate at the level of the individual. This book contains original, first-hand empirical material from a detailed study of all the schools in one English city, and offers a critical analysis of broader political and cultural ideas and values. Get Real About Sexis key reading for students and professionals in education, health and the sociology of gender and sexuality.

The debates on gender and sexuality are widespread today. Many claim that a cultural war is being waged between “conservatives” who uphold the time-honored values of family and sexuality and “liberals” who promote an agenda to redefine these traditional roles. Since the public is often uninformed about the science and philosophical currents undergirding the questions of gender and sexuality, the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum organized an academic symposium in Rome to shed light on the debate. This book gathers the insights of that symposium, which integrated the disciplines of medicine, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, history, philosophy, moral theology, biblical studies, law, bioethics, and pedagogy. This work is aimed at Catholics and all those who seek a more profound understanding of one of today’s most important topics. In the personalist approach of bioethics, the natural law tradition distinguishes the person from his or her acts. In the case of same-sex attractions, the Church teaches clearly that the inclination is not in itself sinful, and that persons with such attractions are deserving of respect and compassion in accord with their full human dignity. Nonetheless, same-sex acts are not natural or ordered. The Church strives to build bridges with the LGBT community by fostering a relationship of compassion, sensitivity, and mutual respect. However, real bridges also require honesty and openness to the truths that pertain to human sexuality, procreation, the family, and the education of future generation.