Primary school parents’ perspectives on relationships and sexuality education in Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT

Primary school educators in Australia are often uncertain about parents’ perspectives when it comes to teaching about relationships and sexuality education in schools. Teachers, school leaders, parents and the broader community continue to struggle with the best way to educate children about the many topics that fall under the banner of relationships and sexuality education. This paper explores the perspectives of primary school parents in Queensland, Australia adding to the growing body of research in internationally about parents’ perspectives on relationships and sexuality education in primary schools.

KEYWORDS:

• relationships and sexuality education
• Primary school
• Parents perspectives
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. RSE is the term used in this paper to reflect the language found in the National Curriculum documents. We acknowledge a range of terms and epistemic positions are used internationally to reflect how sex, sexuality and relationships education is understood.

2. The term parent is used here to refer to a broad range of people who are legal guardians of children in their care.

3. Sex education and respectful relationships are terms used by state authorities to refer to different aspects of RSE.