Exploring alternatives: children’s participation in Critical Sexuality Education in India

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on a larger doctoral study about Critical Sexuality Education with children in Delhi, India. It puts forth alternate research and pedagogic interventions, inspired by the ‘real’ world, to engage children on ideas about sexuality beyond the biological. After presenting a brief overview of political debates and state programmes about sex/uality education in recent years in India, I go on to detail two examples of Participatory Research with girls at a Shelter Home for street children. These involve spatial mapping of their neighbourhood and interviewing a woman E-rickshaw driver. The children-researchers collaborated with the researcher-facilitator to pose questions about gender, violence, equity, access, social justice and so on, vis-à-vis their own lived experiences and social realities.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical sexuality education
• participatory research
• critical pedagogy
• children’s agency
• children as researchers

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Parul Malik

Parul Malik received her Ph.D. in Education at Delhi University. Her doctoral work was about Critical Sexuality Education with children in and beyond schools using participatory and peer education interventions.