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Sexual Literacy

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Childhood and Sexuality

Part of the book series: Studies in Childhood and Youth ((SCY))

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Abstract

In the last chapter, we gave a critical appraisal of sex education and focused on formal, institutional and organisational policy and practice, principally underpinned by legislation and delivered within the education system. Whilst some initiatives, such as those by youth associations (Elley 2013), were drawn into the discussion, the demarcation was necessary in order to focus on very particular and bounded provision, aimed specifically at children and designed to give them ‘relevant’ knowledge and understanding. In setting up that appraisal, there was recognition that it is not easily separated from wider structural and cultural discourses. Children invariably pick up sexual knowledge and understanding, markedly different from formal sex education, via the media, from the internet, from their own nascent experience and its articulation within peer groups and through parental interventions. To an extent, school-based sex education expects parental input in sex and is sensitive to parental preferences and concerns in respect of sex education.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Though in the introduction to Herdt and Howe (2007: 3), Herdt and Howe do explicit relate the agenda for twenty-first-century sexualities and sexual literacy as ‘to follow the US Surgeon general’s lead in helping young people make healthy sexual choices’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK

    Allison Moore & Paul Reynolds

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  1. Allison Moore
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  2. Paul Reynolds
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Moore, A., Reynolds, P. (2018). Sexual Literacy. In: Childhood and Sexuality. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52497-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52497-3_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-52495-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-52497-3

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