“The professional side of it”: exploring discomfort in delivering RSE in an Independent Boarding School in England

ABSTRACT

Teachers in Lady Agatha’s Boarding School (Lady Agatha’s) find teaching Sex and Relationships Education (RSE) uncomfortable. This paper investigates one aspect of the discomfort that they feel, namely the impact RSE has on their professional status as teachers. I use focus group data to reflect on the professional and personal location of teachers at Lady Agatha’s and to explore their understanding of RSE through the recurring themes of professionalism and professional reputation as symbolic capital; deprofessionalisation and risk as symbolic violence; and the connects and disconnects between the doxa and illusio of the school. Findings suggest that by interrogating the sites of symbolic violence which generate RSE discomfort, we can start to unpick the fabric which creates discomfort about RSE, allowing both for a deeper understanding of RSE discomfort in teachers and an opportunity to address this discomfort as a barrier to RSE delivery at Lady Agatha’s.

KEYWORDS:

• RSE
• Professional
• deprofessionalisation
• discomfort
• Bourdieu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) policy is statutory guidance issued by the Department for Education. It was initially published in 2019 but replaced in full in 2020. It is the first sex and relationships statutory guidance issued in England since 1999 and moves the focus of RSE away from teenage pregnancy, towards inclusive relationship and sex education. As statutory guidance it is applicable in and across all schools in England and Wales.

2. In the 2014 regulations, the term Social Moral Spiritual and Cultural (SMSC) education is used. However, PSHE (Physical Social Health and Education) is a more common term because it aligns with the description given by professional bodies such as the PSHE Association, and other terminology used in government guidance.

3. The Common Room is a standard term in independent schools. It describes all the teaching staff in the school, and comprises the main body of actors within the field. It becomes the mechanism that determines capital values and, in this instance, the value attached to specificsubjects.