Young people's views of sex education: gender, information and knowledge

Abstract

This paper derives from research that had the aim of understanding more about adolescents' views of sex education and adolescent sexuality. The data are taken from three separate pieces of research conducted in 1984, 1998 and 2003. This paper presents data about gender, information and knowledge relating to sexuality. It seeks to demonstrate that attitudes to information and knowledge vary significantly with gender. The data suggest that many adolescents we studied were offered different access to information about sex and sexuality in their families. The argument is that this has impact on the sources of information that they rely upon and prefer. We investigate the underlying issues about the ways boys obtain not only information about sex, but also their attitudes to sexual encounters. Sources of information and counselling about sexuality varied with gender. Boys and girls were exposed to different kinds of experience, in which information about sexuality and messages about desire also vary. Home and intimacy with parents, especially mothers, is important for many, although not all, girls in a way it is not for boys. This indicates a picture of boys learning about sex and sexuality in ways that by and large do not include adults, or more especially trusted adults, and where there appears to be some elements of exclusion from the family. This has important implications for sex education programmes, and may offer us insights into why the boys resist school sex education work.

Notes

* School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Email: [email protected]

It is also important to emphasize that this paper deals only with heterosexuality. We have not actively excluded homosexual experiences or the concerns of young gay and lesbian people from our studies but in all three research projects, the young people we studied made almost no mention of it. In the schools and youth facilities we studied we did not find young people prepared to talk to us about their personal feelings and reactions to homosexuality. Although unsurprising in itself, this reluctance may also reflect some inadequacies in our research style or in the approach we made to young people.

The names of schools and individual participants in these studies have been altered here in order to protect their confidences.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynda Measor *

* School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Email: [email protected]