Doing Sex Education

This book examines in detail the contested issue of sex education and studies how it is actually taught, drawing on classroom observation and interviews with teachers and other school personnel as evidence. It illustrates the dynamic, complex and sometimes contradictory processes by which traditional versions of appropriate sexual behaviour and gender relations are legitimized or contested, and how these affect both student and teacher. Attentive to wider contemporary social concerns as well as those arising in the classroom, the book also tackles the broader issues of how sex education should be taught and whether it should even be taught at all.