Dangerous knowledge vs. dangerous ignorance: Risk narratives on sex education in the Russian press

Abstract

The paper is devoted to analysis of the debates on sex education in the Russian press. ‘Risk narrative structure’ of media articles on sex education was determined. This structure represents a system of mutually constituting elements, which include object of risk, risks themselves, solutions to their prevention, solutions opponents, and type of society these solutions presuppose. It is argued that analysis of risks with the aid of ‘risk narrative structures’ can be a useful development of sociocultural theory of risk, as competing risk narratives can be fully grasped only when considered not as discrete claims about different ‘risks’ but as coherent systems of interrelated meanings. On the basis of this structure, competent risk media narratives of proponents and opponents of sex education were reconstructed. In these narratives different definitions of ‘children’ as objects of risk were constructed, and so were types of risks, and types of society. It would be oversimplifying to consider debates on sex education as a battle of ‘enlightened rationality’ against ‘dark irrationality.’ In each risk narrative the solution (introduction or ban of sex education) is a logically following element in the respective risk narrative. While sex education advocates were concerned about negative consequences of children's sexual behaviour and defence of the ‘civilised society's moral boundaries, the opposite side was concerned about retaining children's moral purity and defence of ‘traditional’ moral boundaries.

Keywords:

• risk
• media
• sex education
• Russia
• framing

Notes

1. The newspapers included for these study were: Rossiyskaya gazeta, Izvestiya, Kommersant, Nezavisimaya gazeta, Obshchaya gazeta, Trud, Sovetskaya Rossiya, Moskovskiy Komsomolets.

2. It is important to mention that despite quantitative analysis was not executed in this paper, cursory inspection shows that a newspaper's political stance (with the exception of ultraconservative Sovetskaya Rossiya) was poorly correlated with position on sex education. For instance, moderate conservative Izvestiya backed sex education throughout the period in question. Other newspapers (including liberal ones) published articles that reflected positions of both proponents and opponents on sex education.

3. See works of Rivkin-Fish (1999), Kon (2005), Snarskaya (2009), and Temkina (2009) for the discussion of the history of pedagogical and medical approaches to teaching and writing about sex-related issues in Russia.

4. While this statement seems controversial, its disputability follows from the wrong perception of civil society organisations as something inherently ‘good.’ Oxford Dictionary of Sociology in its definition of ‘civil society’ says that despite absence of unitary meaning of the concept, ‘most authorities have in mind the realm of public participation in voluntary associations, the mass media, professional associations, trade unions, and the like (Oxford Dictionary of Sociology 1998, p. 74). From this definition we can see that there is nothing inherently good in civil society organisations that is independent from their purposes.