This exploration of the "Phi Delta Kappan" archives shows the magazine's long history of addressing issues of sex and gender in schools. Past articles have covered the professional roles of men and women, the education needs of boys and girls, sex education programs, and the treatment of LGBTQ+ teachers and students. The magazine's…

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses…

What do young people believe sexuality education ought to be about? It is within the absence of a sustained and critical consideration of the possibilities and politics of engaging in research with rather than for young people in the reimagining of sexuality education that this paper is positioned. Data were generated as part of an 18-month Youth…

The pervasiveness of sexual issues in counseling suggests the necessity of educating counseling students about relevant topics. Students enrolled in a human sexuality course anonymously submitted topical questions and secrets/fantasies. Following a content analysis, findings depicted themes of content and tone that provided curricular implications…

Science classrooms--and science textbooks--are proving to be challenging spaces for education that contradicts abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) sex education. However, science educators can teach against this knowledge in a way that is critical of oppressive language. In fact, having explicit dialogue about gender identities and sexual…

This article is a commentary on the seven papers in this special issue of "Sex Education." A compelling theme interwoven throughout all the articles in subtle and explicit ways is the role that adults play in the lives of students, particularly in the ways in which adults impact how students enact and respond to the multiple…

While increased visibility of gay, lesbian, transgendered, and queer people in public settings, including schools, is certainly freeing for many students, critical questions concerning whether popular media depictions of LGBTQ identities serve to liberate students, or instead facilitate subtle strategies of containment and ghettoizing, are being…

Teaching about homosexuality, especially in a positive light, has long been held to be a controversial issue. There is, however, a view of the capacity for reason that finds that those who deem homosexuality to be controversial will ultimately contradict themselves, becoming unreasonable. By this standard of reason, homosexuality should be treated…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a…

Although comprehensive sexuality education programmes have the potential to improve the sexual health and well-being of young people, many socially conservative rural states in the USA have laws and policies restricting school-based comprehensive sexuality education and supporting abstinence-only education. This paper describes the process of…

This paper presents findings from a focus group study conducted to evaluate "The Source," an alternate reality game (ARG). ARGs are a relatively new genre of interactive digital games that use a variety of media to engage game players. We developed modules on sexual health, sexual orientation, and homophobia in a game that was delivered…

As many gender teachers know, distinctions between and among complex terms in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans (gender or sexual), queer (LGBTQ) group are often difficult for students to articulate and identify. In fact, terms like "sex" and "gender" are often conflated in public discourse, and terms like…

Peer sexuality educators' accounts of their work reveal two approaches to empathy with their students: affinity and alliance. "Affinity-based empathy" rests on the idea that the more commonalities sexuality educators and students share (or perceive they share), the more they will be able to empathise with one another, while…

This article explores the nature of young adult texts as complementary sources of informal queer sex and sexuality education, along with a close reading of a sample of this young adult (YA) literature. LGBT teens are often left out of discussions in sex education classrooms in the United States because of discriminatory curricula, ignorance on the…

During the 1979 Victorian state election, fundamentalist Christian groups such as the Citizens Against Social Evil launched a public campaign against the inclusion of homosexual content in secondary school education. And, on March 19, 1979, the Minister of Education's office sent out an order to all secondary school principals directing them…