ERIC Number: EJ1355136
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-1811
EISSN: EISSN-1472-0825
Cherish Lives? Progress and Compromise in Sexuality Education Textbooks Produced in Contemporary China
Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, v22 n4 p496-519 2022
This article examines a set of sexuality education textbooks used in a selection of primary schools in Beijing. These textbooks, under the overall name of [characters omitted] (Cherish Lives), embody a comprehensive sexuality education approach with content designed on the basis of the UNESCO International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education. Using feminist critical discourse analysis, we explore these books from three angles: the challenge of engaging with children as sexual subjects, given adult hegemony around sex; confusion about efforts to break the presentation of gender as a binary; and the contradiction between reproducing the myth of universal heterosexuality and attempting to present an education sensitive to LGBT issues. We show that while these textbooks demonstrate progress in sexuality education, they also manifest compromise. Despite this compromise, the books have recently been withdrawn and it is unclear whether their publication heralds a new, high quality approach to primary school sexuality education or not.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Textbooks, Sex Education, Textbook Content, Discourse Analysis, Feminism, Power Structure, Ideology, Sex, Sex Stereotypes, Sexual Identity, Sexual Orientation, Intimacy
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A