In this paper, the author explores some of the issues associated with teaching about compulsory heterosexuality and schooling in an undergraduate sociology programme. Using a novel approach to gathering data, the article analyses the stories students submitted about themselves or others who were counter normative in terms of gender and sexuality…

Background: Most health and developmental issues affecting young people are interrelated. However, few interventions address multiple behavioral domains simultaneously or are based on theories that encompass a holistic perspective of youth development. Aim: The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and describe the range of theory-based,…

The dominant 'heterosexual script' positions men as sexually desiring subjects who initiate sex and use active displays of power to attract women, and women as passive sexual objects who use indirect means to attract men (e.g. physical appearance). While much research has highlighted how this script is deployed in high school settings, less work…

This synthesis of 30 qualitative studies examined young people's views on pornography related to their sexual health. Synthesis revealed pornography use is considered normal by young people, reinforced by its usefulness as a tool for pleasure, information, and instruction in the absence of sufficient sexuality education. However, youth can become…

South African schools are tasked with providing sexuality education through the Life Orientation curriculum as a means of challenging continued high rates of HIV, unwanted pregnancy and gender-based violence. While in theory schools are well positioned to provide appropriate knowledge for reproductive health and navigating sexual challenges within…

Girls' vulnerability to sexual violence and harassment is a recurrent theme in much of the literature on schooling in sub-Saharan Africa. Within this research, girls are often framed as passive victims of violence. By drawing on a case study, this paper focuses on 12 to 13-year-old South African school girls as they mediate and participate in…

Objective: In South Africa, Black African women between the ages of 15 and 24 years are especially vulnerable to HIV. The heterosexual transmission of the disease is exacerbated by social and cultural conditions that perpetuate gender relations of inequality. Problematic conceptualisations of femininity increase sexual risk. The objective of this…

Over the past two decades, comprehensive sexuality education has increasingly been recognised as a measure that positively impacts on the sexual behaviour of young people in Africa. Despite this, and a political call to scale-up the use of comprehensive sexuality education in schools in South Africa, learners with disabilities continue to be left…

Research on sexual practices among young South Africans has proliferated in light of the national imperatives to challenge the spread of HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence and unwanted early pregnancies. In this special issue of "Perspectives in Education" the authors builds on this research by examining how Life Orientation (LO) or Life…

Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is prohibited in South Africa. Against legal gains, however, are marked increases in homophobic violence. Schools are deeply implicated in the development of a moral education premised on democracy and sexual equality. This paper sought to examine the ways in which parents situated within diverse…

How might Life Skills be conceptualised in the Foundation Phase of schooling when a tradition of feminist literature has revealed the regulation, denial and the silencing of both gender and sexuality in early childhood? This article presents one Grade 2 teacher's perspective of addressing sexuality education in an impoverished township primary…

The use of sexual violence as a means of power and control within the South African prison system has been well documented. Sexual violence is intimately linked to the gendering of roles, such that rape and coercive sex is used as a brutal means of imposing a feminised identity; a violent enactment of who penetrates and who gets penetrated. Within…

This paper compares two forms of sexual socialisation to which learners are exposed: the sexuality education components of the Life Orientation (LO) manuals and the lyrical content and videos of popular songs. We performed a textual analysis of the sexual subject positions made available in, first, the LO manuals used in Grade 10 classes and,…

Thirty-eight countries in Africa regard homosexuality as punishable by law with South Africa remaining a standout country advancing constitutional equality on the basis of sexual orientation. In the context of homophobic violence, however, concerns have been raised about schools' potential to improve the educational, moral and social outcomes for…

Young women's sexuality is a contested terrain in multiple ways in contemporary South Africa. A growing body of work in the context of HIV and gender-based violence illustrates how young women find it challenging to negotiate safe and equitable sexual relationships with men, and are often the victims of coercive sex, unwanted early pregnancies and…