Peer education on sexual diversity in Dutch secondary education: Peer educators’ perceptions of activities and perceived outcomes

Abstract

Process evaluations of peer education on the topic of sexuality and relationships pay little attention to the activities implemented by peer educators. Process evaluation with other target groups indicate clusters of activities that refer to educator skills, offering a safe place to learn, and efforts to change attitudes. An overarching factor named life experiences influences how peer educators implement activities. In this study, a peer education for social acceptance of LGBT was created and implemented in pre-vocational secondary schools. Students trained as peer educators implemented peer education, and after the implementation, they were interviewed about their activities. Sharing the coming-out story appeared to play a central role in the peer education intervention and its perceived outcomes.

Keywords:

• Intervention
• interviews
• LGBT
• peer education
• secondary schools

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest in this study. The authors also certify that this paper meets the ethical standards of the APA Code of Conduct and the paper also complies with the authors’ national ethical codes of conduct for research integrity.