A qualitative study on teaching strategies to address sex education in the classroom

Abstract

School must encourage academic learning along with a comprehensive education. Sex education should promote the learning of sexual knowledge, combining the students' prior ideas with an objective and rigorous information about the human sexuality, and foster the acquisition of positive attitudes. The teaching staff is who have to impart sex education in the schools, so it is necessary that its members have been properly trained. We present a qualitative study carried out with teachers from the autonomous community of Castile and León. Seventeen teachers were interviewed in order to examine how schoolteachers approach sex education and the practices that they use to broach it in the classroom and in the schools in the region. A thematic analysis was applied. The results and conclusions obtained reveal training deficiencies of the teaching staff concerning knowledge about sex education and the actions to address it in the classroom. Therefore, this circumstance emphasizes the need for improve and regulate the teacher training in sexuality, so these professionals can impart it in schools.