In response to their experiences of heteronormative and cisnormative cultures in school contexts, some young people undertake various forms of action within their schools with the intention of changing practices, school environments, or school policies. This student-led action can be understood as a form of activism but it may also be seen as the…

Kathleen Quinlivan is passionate about raising the profile and quality of sexuality education in schools. As a past secondary school teacher and current university associate professor she strives to bring research and practice closer together, keeping both connected with students' and teachers' everyday lives. In March this year Kathleen ran an…

Objectives: Understandings of menstruation, including those within teaching, continue to draw on dominant discourses that construct menstruation as shameful and secret. This study trialled a new pedagogical approach to menstruation education that offered opportunities to engage with and mobilise alternative discourses. Design: Teachers of students…

In 2015, the New Zealand Ministry of Education released a new curriculum policy document for sexuality education in all schools -- "Sexuality Education: A Guide for Boards of Trustees, Principals and Teachers". This policy is a rare international example of a curriculum document that explicitly values diversity, promotes inclusive school…

This article draws on the findings from a mixed-methods New Zealand study of the experience of service use of 605 vulnerable young people (aged 13-17 years). Drawing on the survey data, it focuses on the factors that assisted young people to stay on-track with their education. Key findings include: being able to stay at mainstream school was the…

Sexuality and humour share a fraught relationship at school, so that how humour might be productively employed in sexuality education constitutes a "risky" consideration. This paper explores the role of humour in sexuality education as observed in a Year 9 New Zealand health class. Adding to existing literature emphasising students' use…

Drawing on the notion of popular culture as a form of queer emotional provocation, in this paper I suggest that attending to the material enactment of queer pedagogies in context enables an understanding of the importance of attending more fully to the emotional ramifications of queer pedagogies. Working within the context of a research project…

A key function of health education in New Zealand schools has always been to educate individuals to be responsible and accountable for their own health status. Educational, economic and political stances on what best constitutes effective health education, however, shift over time. The outcome of these shifts is that a multiplicity of disciplines…

Health education in New Zealand schools has a chequered history, peppered with controversy since its inclusion as a school subject in the early nineteenth century. In this paper we examine the trials and challenges faced by health education teachers over time, pointing to the particular components of this subject that are regarded as controversial…

This paper seeks to explore the relation between sexuality and pedagogy. This theoretical concern is examined with reference to two key pedagogical moments during a first-year undergraduate course about schooling and sexuality. Through critical reflection of these episodes it is argued that when sexuality is the intellectual focus of a course, the…

In the last 20 years the health promoting schools movement has gained momentum internationally. Without strong national leadership and direction its development in New Zealand has been ad hoc and sporadic. However, as the evidence supporting the role of health promoting schools in contributing to students' health and academic outcomes becomes more…

This paper reports findings from the first stage of an anticipated four-stage research project investigating the effectiveness of teacher education in health education. Prior to receiving any teacher education in health education, pre-service teachers (student teachers) were surveyed for their experiences of secondary school health education, and…

Traditionally, school-based sex education has provided information-based programmes, with the assumption that young people make rational decisions with regard to the use of condoms. However, these programmes fail to take into account contextual issues and developing subjectivities. This paper presents the talk of 42 young people from a New Zealand…