Session Information
WERA SES 04 D, Gender “Matters” Internationally in Education
Paper Session
Contribution
My paper answers the following questions: How do the concepts of innocence and experience feature in Sexuality education; what is the relationship, if any, between how innocence and experience are used in teacher talk on sexuality education and what priorities, if any, does an analysis of innocence and experience hold for the teaching and learning of sexuality education? I unpack the concepts of innocence and experience specifically in terms of how these are juxtaposed when teachers talk about how they make meaning of and teach about sexuality and HIV/AIDS education. Take the concepts of innocence and experience they seem as though they are positioned on different ends of a continuum. True, in everyday parlance they seem mutually exclusive and irreconcilable. For some people innocence is like meekness and naivety like Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1967). The Songs of Innocence illustrates the naive hopes and ignorance that informs the lives of children, as they become adults. The Songs of Experience, on the other hand, describes the harsh social realities and experiences of adult life and at the same time makes reference to the weaknesses of innocence. Although Blake (1967) deals with the constitution of social life with innocence and experience as the unit of analysis, his work nonetheless has not focused on sexuality education or seeing youth as having sexual knowledge and experience. So in many ways, the Songs of Innocence and Experience can come across as simplistic in that the poems are built on the assumption that innocence and experience are mutually exclusive where youth are viewed as incomplete beings in their present location and in a comparative relation to adults. Yet, there are clear parallels between Blake’s songs, written in 1789 England, and how adult experience and therefore power over young people is embedded in South African society, specifically in schools.
Mitchell, Walsh and Larkin (2004, p. 36), writing from a position of concern with the ways in which the social constructions of age can contribute to reducing exacerbating the vulnerability of youth, use the term innocence to refer to the ways that young people are seen as being in need of protection and not in need of participating actively in exploring and acting on their own sexuality. Mitchell, Walsh and Larkin (2004, p. 36) continue that the use of innocence potentially constructs young people as un-knowledgeable about sexuality, sexual practice an their own bodies, and inherently creates young people as pure. If sexuality education must address the needs and interests of young people as conceptualized by them (Aggleton & Campbell, 2000), how do concepts of innocence and experience feature within the sexuality education classroom.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Aggleton, P., & Campbell, C. (2000). Working with young people - towards an agenda for sexual health. Sexual & Relationship Therapy, 15, 283–296. Allen, L. (2005). “Say everything”: exploring young peoples suggestions for improving sexuality education. Sex Education, 5, 389–404. Allen, L. (2008). Young people’s “agency” in sexuality research using visual methods. Journal of Youth Studies, 11(6), 565–577. doi:10.1080/13676260802225744 Bhana, D. (2007). The price of innocence: teachers, gender, childhood sexuality, HIV and AIDS in early schooling. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(4), 431–444. doi:10.1080/13603110701391394 Epstein, D., & Johnson, R. (1998). Schooling sexualities. Buckingham: Open University Press. Francis, D. (2013). Sexuality Education in South Africa: Whose values are we teaching? Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 22(2), 69–76. Mitchell, C., Walsh, S., & Larkin, J. (2004). Visualizing the politics of innocence in the age of AIDS. Sex Education, 4, 35–47. Pattman, R., & Chege, F. (2003). “Dear diary, I saw an angel, she looked like heaven on earth”: Sex talk and sex education. African Journal of AIDS Research, 2, 103–112. Seidman, I. E. (1991). Interviewing as qaulitative research. New York: Teachers College Press.
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