Research project Enacting Sex Education
Enacting Sex Education: a practice based study concerning an interdisciplinary knowledge content in Swedish secondary school.
Sex education is referred as a particular knowledge content by the Swedish Agency of Education school and is compulsory to students. This research project studies how the subject is created as both a subject-wide and subject-integrated knowledge content, but also how the teaching is perceived by students and teachers. The research is close to practice by researchers and teachers examining the teaching at four schools, by exploring the subject in research circles with teachers and by examining students 'and teachers' perceptions of classroom teaching.
Project description
Sex education is an integrated aspect of Swedish secondary school and referred as a particular knowledge content by the Swedish Agency of Education. However, there is a lack of research on the actual practice of teaching sex education. With the purpose of pursuing a practice-based study on sex education two approaches have been found to be the best fitting for our goals - the subject matter didactic and a interdisciplinary approach.
The study will focus on both Swedish secondary school classrooms and research circles with teachers. The aim is to examine how sex education is taught, experienced and can be developed as part of a variety of school subjects. Accordingly, we will explore how sex education is enacted in particular school subjects from a subject didactical perspective, but also how it works in collaboration across subjects from an interdisciplinary perspective. The four year study is based on three methods of data collection: research circles with teachers and the research team, classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students. This practice-based study is grounded in sociomaterial ontology and epistemology. The sociomaterial approach is found to be useful to explore aspects of norms, bodies, affect, biology, relationality and subjectivity within the complex area that is sex education. The project will contribute with foundational knowledge on how sex education is enacted in Swedish secondary school.
Project members
Project managers
Karin Gunnarsson
Senior lecturer
Members
Auli Arvola Orlander
Associate professor
Simon Ceder
Senior Lecturer, Konstfack
Elisabeth Öhman
Senior lecturer
