This paper provides an extensive literature review of current approaches to sexual consent and demonstrates their insufficiency for teaching higher education students about healthy sex. Their overemphasis on the giving of consent to the detriment of attention to the process of gaining consent, as well as their inappropriate utilisation of…

This article examines how schools are produced as spaces for heterosexual, cisgender citizens. Lefebvre's spatial triad is employed to analyse how conceived, perceived and lived spaces interact to produce a space that is often experienced as one of surveillance for LGBT+ people. This surveillance can lead to the internalisation of negative social…

Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of policy documents and textbooks, this paper contributes to the growing field of research on the role of schools and schooling with regards to the construction of gender and sexuality by focusing on school practices and educational spaces. We argue that the nation-state in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a…

As the school National Science Curriculum in Turkey includes topics such as human reproduction, hormonal growth and adolescent health, elementary school science teachers (ESTs) are required to teach sexuality-related topics to their students. However, studies have shown that teachers in Turkey, like their counterparts in many other countries, have…

This article explores Finnish regulatory authorities' attempts to mitigate young people's participation in mediated sexuality. Previous studies have argued that both attempted regulation and education about media and sexuality are often out of touch with many adolescents' lives. This study uses a Foucauldian inspired critical investigative method…

Sexual health policies explicitly aim to encourage young people to take responsibility for their sexuality to prevent adverse outcomes such as unintended pregnancies, STIs and sexual assault. In Europe and North America, 'choice' has become a central concept in sexual and reproductive health policy making. However, the concept of choice is not…

Changing and challenging social norms is essential to preventing gendered violence, and education is widely regarded as a key means through which this can happen. Whilst good-quality research exploring the outcomes of such educational interventions exists, very little is known about what actually happens inside educational spaces aiming to…

In many contexts, there has been a rapid increase in the visibility of trans* lives in the public sphere. Much educational research has focused on how to make life better for trans* children and young people in schools. This paper moves sideways from this concern to explore how public discourses around trans* lives and the individual labour of…

In this paper, I draw on observations from sexual health workshops in an elementary school classroom in Vancouver, Canada and friendship pair interviews with four boys who attended the workshops. I examine how the educators organising the workshops constructed sexual health, highlighting their reliance on both a "gay is okay" and a…

This paper considers three pedagogical moments in the film "Tomorrow, When the War Began" (2010), contemplating the way in which they open a space for conversations about feelings, sexuality and gender. "Tomorrow, When the War Began" follows the plight of 17-year-old Ellie who returns to her rural town from a camping trip with…

Education Ordinance 1971 in Hong Kong not only provided girls with a much greater chance of receiving education than had hitherto been the case, it also had the effect of incorporating them into the regulatory framework of the school system. This paper examines how the discourses of civic education and sex education before and after reunification…

This paper aims to understand why and how young Muslim women pursue sexual relationships in the urban bustees (slums) of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. I discuss how girls in heterosexual romantic relationships decide where, when and how to have sex, and the importance of class discourses and popular Bollywood culture in this decision-making…

This qualitative narrative study examined contraceptive use and non-use in light of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The purpose of this paper was to understand contraceptive use and non-use among Finnish teenage girls: why do girls use or not use contraception in a sexually motivated situation and how do the determinants of the Theory of Planned…

In this study a matched intervention-control site design in 14 urban health centers with random selection of 160 participants (80 in each of intervention and control) was used to evaluate a sex education program in Iran. Qualitative methods were used in a needs assessment that also set the content and method of delivery of the program. The…