ERIC Number: EJ1444984
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-1811
EISSN: EISSN-1472-0825
Zimbabwean Teenagers Learning Sexuality and Negotiating Abstinence
Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, v24 n6 p751-764 2024
To address teenage learners' risk of HIV, STIs and pregnancy, good quality school-based sexuality education is of great importance. In this paper we address Zimbabwean young people's construction of sex and sexuality education. We draw from semi-structured individual interviews conducted with forty-seven teenage boys and girls aged between 15 and 19 years in two rural schools in Zimbabwe. The study's findings suggest that teenagers make sense of sex and sexuality education within dominant discursive frameworks that stress the importance of sexual innocence and abstinence, with the sexuality of teenage girls receiving special surveillance. However, the learners in our study also occupied positions which suggested young people's sexual agency beyond innocence. In the light of these contradictions, teenagers in Zimbabwe are caught up in producing both sexual innocence and sexual agency, making abstinence only education irrelevant to their day to day lives. Implications for future forms of sexuality education and teenagers' sexual agency in rural Zimbabwean schooling are suggested.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Rural Schools, Adolescents, Sex Education, Sexuality, Femininity, Masculinity, Sex Role, Cultural Context
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Zimbabwe
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A