Position Paper No. 1:
Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Deb Ollis
The Educating Young People about Sexuality Education Project (EYPSEP) aims to
improve the sexual health of young people in Australia by improving sexuality
education in secondary schools.
Many terms are associated with the provision of school based sexuality education.
The most common being ‘sex education’, which has its roots in the bio-medical and
physiological aspects of sexuality or what we often hear referred to as the
‘plumbing’ or functional approach (Farrelly et al. 2007). A concern about hygiene,
birth rates and family life focused early approaches to sex education around a
traditionalist approach, concerned with sexual safety, abstinence and improving
birth rates in the context of family life (Peppard 2008).
Although the content of sexuality education has broadened over the past 40 years,
the focus on safety and hygiene has remained. However, a key change occurred in
the 1980s as Australia adopted a harm minimization approach to deal with the
spread of HIV (Commonwealth Department of Health and Family services 1993,
1995). This was a major shift in positioning as it meant ‘accepting non-judgmentally
the current prevalent behaviors and seeking to develop short term and immediate
strategies that are likely to be and have some capacity to minimize the potential for
harm in the existing situation’ (Moore et al. 1996, p 63). In terms of school based
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sexuality education the harm minimization approach was also applied to other areas
of sexual safety, such as pregnancy and sexual assault.
The acknowledgement of the social context of sexuality and sexual health more
broadly, first emerged in Australia during the 1970s and 80s. Health and human
relationships education gain prominence (McLeod 1999) and curriculum policy
frameworks positioned sexuality in the broader social context of relationships (c/f
MOE Personal Development Framework, 1989). Many researchers argue that HIV
was the single most important reason for this change (Peppard 2008; Altman 1992).
However, another important influence was the clear link between sexuality issues,
such as sexual violence and unintended pregnancy, and school retention rates, and
girls’ educational performance (Commonwealth Schools Commission 1987). This led
to the inclusion of strategies to address gender-based violence in sexuality education
(Ollis and Tomaszewski 1993; Ollis 2009).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the phrase sexuality education emerged as the
preferred term for what had been previously referred to as sex education and/or
health and human relations. The following official statement demonstrates the shift
away from a bio-medical orientation to a more social orientation in sexuality
education:
Sexuality is an integral part of our selfhood. It involves more than just
being anatomically and genetically female or male and it is not
defined by ones sexual acts. It influences our perceptions, attitudes
and behaviours in relation to other individual and society. From the
beginning to the end of our lives sexuality affects all aspect of our
existence- the way we think, the way we feel what we do and who we
are.
Sexuality education involves improving personal and social skills, such
as understanding and managing a range of feelings and moods;
trusting and being trusted; communication skills including active
listening; coping with peer-pressure, sex-role stereotyping, sexual
violence and other conflict situations related to sexuality (Ministry of
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Education 1989 p.79)
This broader approach was more inclusive of the personal and social aspects of
intimate relationships. However, it failed to acknowledge sexual and gender
diversity. It also failed to promote a sex positive approach to human sexuality that
acknowledged sexual desire, pleasure, and intimacy, and worked towards alleviating
shame, guilt and fear.
In 2009, UNESCO released a policy framework and guidelines for teaching about
sexuality education that maintained that sexuality education should be:
…an age appropriate, culturally relevant approach to teaching about
sex and relationships by providing scientifically accurate, realistic,
non-judgmental information. Sexuality education provides
opportunities to explore one’s own values and attitudes and to build
decision-making, communication and risk reduction skills about many
aspects of sexuality (UNESCO 2009. p.2).
Further research with young people clearly showed that sexuality education needed
to acknowledge the importance of intimacy, desire and pleasure in sexual
relationships. This acknowledgement would assist young people to feel positive
about themselves, their sexuality and their bodies (Harrison and Hillier 2002; Allen
2005; 2011).
Most recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement defining
sexuality in this broad sense. It has been used in the newly released Australian
Curriculum in Health and Physical Education:
…a central aspect of being human throughout life encompasses sex,
gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure,
intimacy and reproduction. Sexuality is experienced and expressed in
thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours,
practices, roles and relationships. While sexuality can include all of
these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or
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expressed. Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biological,
psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, legal, historical,
religious and spiritual factors (WHO 2014. p1).
Comprehensive sexuality education in this project draws on this understanding of
sexuality and therefore maintains that comprehensive, school based programs
should address these issues in culturally sensitive, and age and developmentally
appropriate ways within the context of everyday life. In line with the sentiments of
Mazin (2014), we believe that ‘sexuality education is meaningful only when
humanized - when placed in the landscape of our everyday life’. This helps young
people make sense of the social world in which they make decisions about their
sexuality and sexual health.
In many ways Haberland (2013) captures the challenges and key components of how
we define comprehensive sexuality education. Her definition assumes that sexuality
is positive and links information and critical thinking with empowerment, choice and
a celebration of gender and sexual diversity (Mazin 2014; Formby et al, 2010; Allen
2011; Ferguson et al, 2008; Sieg, 2003; Ollis, 2010; Family Planning Victoria, 2006).
The real challenge is to enable young people to connect knowledge
about their bodies with their lived experiences and the world around
them. This means teaching them to reflect about emotions (including
desire, anxieties and fears). It means helping them analyze the power
imbalance that so fundamentally shape intimate relationships and
sexual risk and develop competence to deal with them in positive and
transformative ways. Sexuality education must therefore focus on
developing young people’s analytic and critical thinking skills and
fostering egalitarian and respectful norms (Haberland 2013 cited in
Mazin 2014 p 1).
In order to truly enable young people ‘to connect knowledge about
their bodies with their lived experiences and the world around them’,
they need to have a voice in what and how they are educated about
sexuality in schools (Allen 2005). Research that informs this project
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has shown that what teachers think students should learn is often not
what they want to learn (Johnson 2012). In line with other evidence
that has existed for over 20 years (Kirby 1999), Haberland (2013)
found such an approach is far more likely than traditional and
functionalist approaches to reduce rates of adolescent sexual assault,
STI’s and unintended pregnancy.
‘This – and nothing less is what constitutes comprehensive sexuality education’
(Mazin 2014 p.2)
References
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