Drawing on curriculum examples from Australia and Canada, we outline three key elements to support the development school-based HPV vaccination literacy for young people: (1) knowledge and understanding about HPV and HPV vaccination; (2) the scientific principles underpinning vaccination; and (3) the socio-political factors influencing HPV…

Policymakers are considering initiatives to reduce potential harms of pornography, including educational and legislative approaches. In determining the appropriateness of policies, however, it is important to consider community attitudes. We conducted an online survey with a convenience sample of 1272 young people aged 15-29 in Australia,…

Past efforts to address endemic rates of sexually transmissible infections amongst young Aboriginal people living in remote/very remote Australian communities have had limited success. Peer education has been used in youth sexual health promotion but has received limited evaluation and has not been tested in remote Aboriginal settings. The Young…

Objective: Australia has implemented a nation-wide programme providing a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to girls and boys through school-based programmes. Previous research has identified three distinct areas for attention: (1) lack of understanding about HPV and HPV vaccination, (2) young people's desire for involvement in decision-making…

Sexuality education is a trusted source of information and guidance for adolescents and young people on sexual health, sexuality and relationships, and it can improve the sexual health of this population. Such education is most effective when informed by the views of young people themselves; however, there is limited research that investigates…

Sexuality education as pedagogy is often fraught by the perceived requirement to balance the informational needs of young people with an investment in notions of childhood 'innocence'. Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in sexuality education that seeks to be inclusive of transgender young people, often resulting in the failure of such…

The National Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Program in Australia commenced in 2007 for girls and in 2013 for boys, using the quadrivalent HPV [4vHPV] vaccine. In Australia, students are primarily vaccinated en masse, on school grounds, after parental/ guardian consent is obtained. Students most often receive little, or no, education at…

This paper reports on findings from the first Western Australian Survey of Educators of Sexuality Education, which aimed to assess the state of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) in the state of Western Australia. Key findings show that secondary school teachers provided more hours of RSE instruction than the national average. However,…

Most hepatitis C transmission occurs through the sharing of equipment used for injecting drugs, and in many settings, the majority of equipment sharing occurs between sexual partners. Despite this, few health promotion materials directly address sexual partnerships, couples or social relationships in general. This blindspot is one example of the…

In South Australia, sex education has been controversial since its inception. The Australasian White Cross league and the Family Planning Association of South Australia were the pioneers of sex education in South Australia. The framing of a national framework and the implementation of the SHARE (Sexual Health and Relationships Education) project…

Sex education is a contested site in the school curriculum as communities grapple with who should teach young people about sex and how it should be taught. In this paper we ask whether same-sex-attracted young people are being exposed to appropriate and relevant sex education at school, and if they are not whether it is necessary that sex…

Mobile phone text messages (SMS) are a promising method of health promotion, but a simple and low cost way to obtain phone numbers is required to reach a wide population. We conducted a randomised controlled trial with simultaneous brief interventions to (i) evaluate effectiveness of messages related to safer sex and sun safety and (ii) pilot the…

Young people in Australia are at greatest risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, and priority actions are necessary for this population group. This study of marginalised and at-risk young people in out-of-school environments was conducted in Western Australia with the aim of obtaining young people's perceptions about their experience…

Globally, adolescents aged 12-15 years are making sexual and reproductive decisions of profound significance for their future, often based on misguided, inadequate or dangerously wrong information. Very few countries provide evidential and comprehensive education about puberty, sexuality, and reproductive health and safety to children and young…

This paper seeks to make a theoretical and analytic intervention into the field of HIV-related education and prevention by applying the pedagogy framework of Basil Bernstein to a series of pedagogical devices developed and used in community-based programmes targeting gay men in Australia. The paper begins by outlining why it is such an…