A feminist inquiry into Canadian pre-service teacher narratives on sex education and sexual violence prevention

ABSTRACT

This research uses feminist methodology to investigate the multi-contextual narratives of pre-service teachers in sex education when they were K-12 students, their emerging understandings of sex and sexual violence, and their experiences learning about prevention in undergraduate and teacher education. Participants experienced inadequate sex education in K-12 school, where they learned about sex and sexual violence through the margins of rather than the formal curriculum, leading to difficulty negotiating sexual ethics and developing sexual citizenship. Participants critically reflected on their own teachers’ discomfort with teaching about sex and addressing incidences of sexual violence, as well as on the absence of prevention education in the teacher education. They had limited understandings of sexual violence and expressed desire to learn more as they emerge into their teacher roles, to do better than their teachers did. Implications include the need for mandatory integration of prevention education throughout the teacher certification curriculum.

KEYWORDS:

• Pre-service teachers
• teacher education
• sex education
• sexual violence prevention
• narrative inquiry

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Christopher Greig, Dr. Frances Cachon, and Dr. Nancy Taber and the wisdom of my participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a SSHRC doctoral fellowship [752-2021-1126].

Notes on contributors

Salsabel Almanssori

Salsabel Almanssori is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Windsor's Faculty of Education and Women's and Gender Studies. She is also a registered and practicing Ontario Certified Teacher. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on feminist pedagogies, teacher education, gender-based and sexual violence, and digital public pedagogies. Her work can be found in peer reviewed journals such as Pedagogy, Culture & Society, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, and Teaching and Teacher Education, among others.