Sex Education as Curricular Content in Initial Teacher Training and Education

Abstract

In this article a exploratory-descriptive-comparative study is carried out to find out the current situation of sex education in the official Teacher Training and Education degrees of 45 Spanish public universities. We analysed 843 teaching guides included in the syllabuses of 189 degrees in Early Childhood and Primary Education, Pedagogy and in the Master's Degree in Teacher Training in Secondary and Upper Secondary Education and Vocational Training. For this aim, we have reviewed the current training possibilities in these studies based on information from the syllabuses of the official degree programmes and the teaching guides of the subjects taught in the 2018-2019 academic year. A set of key words related to sexuality and the gender perspective were selected as a global, transversal and specific level; checking the existence or absence of these terms and carrying out a content analysis of the official documents. The results show that sex education is a "pending subject" in initial teacher training in Spain, with a low presence in official university degrees. It is observed that initial training in sex education is neither guaranteed nor specifically included in the curricula, which is in contradiction with the recommendations of international organisations.