Unequal Gender Identities and Teenagers´ Emotional and Sexual Education

Author(s):

Guadalupe Clavo García(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 07 B, Gender Issues

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

17:15-18:45

Room:

ESI 3 - Aula 5

Chair:

Dana Moree

Contribution

This paper is based on the thesis I’m working at present, it deals with adolescence sexual identities. It focuses on the emotional and sexual education of young girls and boys, and particularly considers whether it favours the imitation of heteronormative patterns social inequality linked to gender binary distribution.

The main objective of this research is to find out teenagers perceptions, beliefs and interpretations of sexual identities and the related inequalities.

This general goal is described through five specific objectives:

To know their opinions on how the teaching staff has influenced the construction of their own identities and their understanding of other identities.
To find out how they value the various sexual identity roles, especially non-standard ones.
To show how their sexual identity conceptions influence their love and sexual relationship behaviours.
To infer in which sense their academic development is influenced by their emotional and sexual relationships.
To meditate on the education they are acquiring through the program “Forma Joven”.

This work is based on the theoretical contributions of various authors from the Third-wave Feminism (Friedma, 1963; Millet, 1969; Firesone, 1970; Pateman, 1988). This movement supports the searching of self-identity and the control of the own sexuality. In the same way, this work is also based on the feminist studies on sexuality (Moore, 1991, Maquieira, 2001), love relationships (Jonasdottir, 1993; Martín Gaite, 2001; Esteban, Medina and Tábora, 2005 and 2010; Coontz, 2006; Duque, 2006; Esteban, 2008; Bosch et al, 2010; Leal et al, 2010) and masculinists (Connell, 1995; Miedzan, 1995; Bonino, 1996; Lomas, 2003); which show how sexuality and the roles we assume in society are the product of the discourses spread out from the structures of power in every society. Some works on non-standard sexual identities have also been considered (Wittig, 1980; Butler, 2007; Vázquez, 2007, 2009). Finally, the works most directly related to this study, are those involved in the socialization and construction of gender identities from the educational field (Kolhberg, 1972; Ben, 1974; Parsons, 1976; Davies, 1989; Askew and Ross, 1991; Connell, 1995; Miedzian, 1995; Francis, 1999; Blanco, 2001; Jones and Myhill, 2004; Read, Francis and Skelton, 2011), and those focused on adolescents’ sexual and affective education (Barragán, 1996; Altable, 1991, 2000 y 2010).

Method

The methodological perspective adopted in the thesis is qualitative; specifically four case studies are being carried out, two of them on boys and the other two on girls. These adolescents have been trained as health and sex mediators through the Forma Joven program. A program whose educational sessions I have attended on several occasions. The main technique used for the gathering of information is the in-depth interview, which has allowed the interviewees to feel confident enough as to express and share their reflections on themselves, and their notions about sex, gender and sexuality. Besides, some other methods are also being used: diaries, semi-structured interviews carried out by different educational agents, observation and informal conversations.

Expected Outcomes

At the present time not many results can be withdrawn from the analysis of the cases, although it is possible to draw some conclusions from the information gathered in the observations and the informal conversations hold during the training sessions of the “Forma Joven” program. Adolescents assure to have received a poor sexual education on the part of the main educational agents; families do usually avoid the topic, and schools just explain reproductive and sex organs and enumerate the various contraceptive methods, and hence spreading the androcentric and heteronormative model, focused on genitalia and coitus associating them almost exclusively to reproduction. This limited sexual education and the influence of the other prevailing discourses on the topic (those mainly transferred through mass media), these boys and girls do not question “universal truths” about sexuality (even if they meet contradictions). They continue believing in myths on the topic and maintaining attitudes which enhance the development of stereotypes and inequalities; and by doing so, they allow many injustices to take place.

References

Altable Vicario, Charo (2010): Los senderos de Ariadna: transformar las relaciones mediante la coeducación emocional, Barcelona, Granada: Octaedro. Blanco, Nieves (Ed.) (2001): Educar en femenino y en masculino, Madrid: Akal. Butler, Judith (2007): El género en disputa. El feminismo y la subversión de la identidad, Barcelona: Paidós. Connell, Robert W. (1995): “La organización social de la masculinidad”, in Valdes, Teresa & Olavarría, José (Ed.) (1995): Masculinidad/es: poder y crisis, ISIS-FLACSO: Ediciones de las Mujeres, 24, pp. 31-48. Duque, Elena (2006): Aprendiendo para el amor o para la violencia. Las relaciones en las discotecas Barcelona: El Roure. Foucault, M.(1984): Historia de la sexualidad. Vol. I. La voluntad del saber. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Jónasdóttir, Anna G. (1993): El poder del amor. ¿Le importa el sexo a la democracia?, Madrid: Cátedra. Jones, Susan & Myhill, Debra (2004): Troubles boys and compliant girls: gender identity and perceptions of achievement and underachievement, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25 (5) pp. 547 - 561. Maquieira, Virginia (2001): “Género, diferencia y desigualdad”, in Beltrán, Elena & Maquieira, Virginia (Eds.): Feminismos. Debates teóricos contemporáneos, Barcelona: Alianza, pp. 127 - 190. Pateman, Carol (1995): El contrato sexual, Madrid: Anthropos. Read, B., Francis, B. & Skelton, C. (2011): Gender, Popularity and Notions of In/Authenticity amongst 12-13yr old School Girls, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32 (2) pp. 169-183. Rubin, Gayle (1996): “El tráfico de mujeres: Notas sobre la "economía política" del sexo”, in Lamas, Marta (Comp.): El género: la construcción cultural de la diferencia sexual, México: PUEG, pp. 35-96. Vázquez García, Francisco (2009): “Políticas transgénicas y ciencias sociales: por un construccionismo bien temperado”, in: Ponencias Seminario: Teoría Queer. De la transgresión a la transformación social, Sevilla: Centro de Estudios Andaluces, pp. 3 – 14. Witting, M (2005): El pensamiento heterosexual. Barcelona: Egales.

Author Information

Guadalupe Clavo García (presenting / submitting)

Universidad de Cádiz, Spain

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