SEX: A DIRTY WORD? EXAMINING THE NATURE OF SEX AND RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION (SRE) AS A ‘CURRENT ISSUE’ IN PRIMARY EDUCATION (UK).
Sex: A Dirty Word? Examining the nature of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) as a ‘current issue’ in primary education (UK).
At the time of writing there is breaking widespread discoveries of sex related scandals or horrific accounts of abuse relating to sex and trafficking (Marley, 2012; BBC News, 2013; Burke, 2013). With a increasingly sexualised society (Mullinar, 1994; Kumar, 2013) and the influence the media has over young people (Slough, 1995), it seems pertinent to ask the question why as a nation, are we not more clued up in preventing rather than recovering from such tragedies?
A noted aim of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) is to teach about awareness, knowledge and correct actions related to sexual abuse (Loeber et al, 2010) to ensure the learner has the best chance of societal integration and healthy sex life (Loeber et al, 2010). Herein lies the concern, differing societies engage differently, leading SRE to assume many guises (Loeber et al, 2010; Fentahun et al, 2012).
The dichotomy for policy makers and politicians concerned is that relevant and appropriate content has to be offset against the fear of public outcry (Sonfield, 2012; Zhou, 2012). Sex and the surrounding paraphernalia is still seen by some, especially parents or those involved in the education of children, as taboo (Formby, 2011). It is a subject that evokes an unusually deep emotional response in a wide demographic of people (Vasagar, 2011), perhaps because sex and relationships are something we all feel a connection to. Perhaps then surrounding such controversy it is little surprise that there is reluctance to update national policy (Evans and Tripp, 2006; Sonfield, 2012), indeed there has been no major update to any government guidelines concerning SRE in 13 years (Evans and Tripp, 2006; Hoyle, 2012; Sex Education Forum, 2013).
Invariably this has led to schools and educators hesitant to deliver any form of SRE (Formby, 2011) explaining the comment of the Sex
At the time of writing there is breaking widespread discoveries of sex related scandals or horrific accounts of abuse relating to sex and trafficking (Marley, 2012; BBC News, 2013; Burke, 2013). With a increasingly sexualised society (Mullinar, 1994; Kumar, 2013) and the influence the media has over young people (Slough, 1995), it seems pertinent to ask the question why as a nation, are we not more clued up in preventing rather than recovering from such tragedies?
A noted aim of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) is to teach about awareness, knowledge and correct actions related to sexual abuse (Loeber et al, 2010) to ensure the learner has the best chance of societal integration and healthy sex life (Loeber et al, 2010). Herein lies the concern, differing societies engage differently, leading SRE to assume many guises (Loeber et al, 2010; Fentahun et al, 2012).
The dichotomy for policy makers and politicians concerned is that relevant and appropriate content has to be offset against the fear of public outcry (Sonfield, 2012; Zhou, 2012). Sex and the surrounding paraphernalia is still seen by some, especially parents or those involved in the education of children, as taboo (Formby, 2011). It is a subject that evokes an unusually deep emotional response in a wide demographic of people (Vasagar, 2011), perhaps because sex and relationships are something we all feel a connection to. Perhaps then surrounding such controversy it is little surprise that there is reluctance to update national policy (Evans and Tripp, 2006; Sonfield, 2012), indeed there has been no major update to any government guidelines concerning SRE in 13 years (Evans and Tripp, 2006; Hoyle, 2012; Sex Education Forum, 2013).
Invariably this has led to schools and educators hesitant to deliver any form of SRE (Formby, 2011) explaining the comment of the Sex
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