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Challenging ‘the elephant in the room’: the becomings of pornography education in Swedish secondary school
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Teaching and Learning.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0441-5660
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Teaching and Learning.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2518-3400
2024 (English)In: Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, ISSN 1468-1811, E-ISSN 1472-0825, Vol. 24, no 1, p. 16-30Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This study was conducted among a group of Swedish teachers and a class of 14–15-year-old students and explored pornography education as part of secondary school sexuality education. Data were generated using mixed methods including teacher-researcher meetings, participant observation in class, student interviews, and teacher evaluation meetings, and were documented in the form of audio-recordings and notes. Donna Haraway’s work on string figuring was used to trace the threads constituting pornography education. A four-threaded string figure materialised how Swedish schools’ gender equality stance could provide a sound foundation for engaging with pornographic material. However, a gender-neutral approach to teaching frustrated these aims. The figure also foregrounded how normative societal debate makes it troublesome to acknowledge other than negative perspectives in teaching, problematised the engagement of students and a focus on pornography. Finally, the figure showed a discrepancy between the curriculum’s overall aim and the goals of subject-specific syllabi, making it troublesome to link the topic of pornography to specific school subjects. In summary, pornography education came into being as a complex figure in relation to adolescent sexuality and the school’s mission to provide a form of sexuality education that both problematises gendered sexual scripts and dominant norms with regards to pornography.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024. Vol. 24, no 1, p. 16-30
Keywords [en]
Teaching, pornography, secondary school, Donna Haraway, string figuring
National Category
Didactics
Research subject
Subject Learning and Teaching
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-210859DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2022.2137487ISI: 000870907600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85140267570OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-210859DiVA, id: diva2:1706786
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-03962Available from: 2022-10-27 Created: 2022-10-27 Last updated: 2024-01-09Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Becomings of Swedish secondary sexuality education: Enactments in natural science subjects and interdisciplinary teaching about pornography
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Becomings of Swedish secondary sexuality education: Enactments in natural science subjects and interdisciplinary teaching about pornography
2023 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This thesis is about Swedish secondary sexuality education with a particular focus on the becomings of natural science and pornography education. Recent scrutiny of the knowledge area has stressed the need for teaching to include student perspectives, cover more than mere medical and biological knowledge, and be more affirmative. Accordingly, the main aim of this thesis has been to investigate the becomings of lower and upper secondary sexuality education with a practice-based approach. A second aim has been to explore how the onto-epistemological framing could contribute to new understandings of what sexuality education could be and to make proposals for the teaching and learning of the knowledge area. Here, the theoretical positions offered by Karen Barad and Donna Haraway were used in analysis of teacher and student discussions on various phenomena related to sex and sexuality. The four studies forming the basis of this thesis further build upon engagements with four different schools—two lower and upper secondary settings, respectively. Data were produced through notes and audio recordings where the teachers discussed the construction of sexuality education, or from actual teaching in a class and student interviews. Study I engages with the teaching of genital anatomy and upper secondary students’ notions of virginity. The results suggest that teaching should engage with a variety of perspectives, for example, traditions, norms, and values with regard to virginity. Study II focuses on upper secondary student engagements with contraceptive methods, in particular, the use of hormonal contraception and a mobile phone contraceptive application. The results show the need for teaching to problematise possible side effects of various contraceptive methods, and contraceptive responsibility. Study III breaks with the natural science framing and engages with an interdisciplinary teacher collaboration concerning education about pornography. The topic came into being as somewhat troublesome, having had too great a focus on the teaching, and it is therefore suggested that the topic be part of a wider context addressing gender equality, relationships, sexuality, communication, and consent. Study IV returns to the teaching of natural science sexuality education, but from a more general perspective. In this study, the teachers found ways to invite students to be part of the unfolding of the teaching and to challenge heterosexual and sex-negative premises common in sexuality education in Sweden and worldwide. Overall, in the four studies, sexuality education was enacted as a highly relational and explorative practice. Encounters with primarily the material world, but also time and space, further made teaching more student centred. It is suggested that sexuality education moreover not only be taught as a medical and biological phenomenon, but also in entanglement with perspectives on culture, religion, history, tradition, and societal norms.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Department of Teaching and Learning, Stockholm University, 2023. p. 96
Keywords
Swedish sexuality education, practice-based approach, lower and upper secondary school, Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, student participation, material engagements, relationality, pornography education, virginity, contraceptive methods, science education
National Category
Didactics
Research subject
Science Education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-214415 (URN)978-91-8014-188-8 (ISBN)978-91-8014-189-5 (ISBN)
Public defence
2023-03-27, Vivi Täckholmsalen (Q-salen), NPQ-huset, Svante Arrhenius väg 20A, and online via Zoom, public link is available at the department website, Stockholm, 13:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2023-03-02 Created: 2023-02-05 Last updated: 2023-02-27Bibliographically approved

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Planting-Bergloo, SaraArvola Orlander, Auli

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