This particular sex education program was significantly limited in how it addressed issues of sexual violence, homophobia, and discrimination, mainly due to the ways in which the health educators‘ dominant discourses normalised a heterosexual view of gender which privileged male hegemony and devalued the role of the female (Connell et al. 1982; Epstein & Johnson 1998; Gilbert & Gilbert 1998). The health educators‘ discourses were informed by biological and psychological versions of knowledge that were highly prescriptive and assumed a normative sexuality based on the reproductive system. While this natural science approach did offer the students extremely important information in terms of biological and psychological systems, it resulted in a sex education program that was information-based, assumed a rational, linear approach to safe sex practices, and emphasised individual rationality and knowledge above all else (Abel & Fitzgerald 2006).
Discussions about the role of feelings and emotions in sexual relationships were noticeably absent from the health educators‘ discourses which severely limited the sex education program‘s capacity to offer relevant guidance about relationship building, including issues of pleasure and how to recognise and act on sexual threats (Connell 2005; Fine 1988). Feelings and emotions as signifiers of how individuals are positioned in social and relational contexts are extremely important in understanding adolescent views on sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making (Able & Fitzgerald 2006; Ingham & Kirkland 1997). For instance, the female students felt that introducing the subject of contraception into discussions surrounding sexual activity was not simply a question of understanding the sexual health risks involved, it was about the way they were being positioned within the power relations that operated in that particular social and relational context. The female students were also aware that talking about contraception in the sex education program positioned them as either having, or intending to have, knowledge of sexual intercourse (Coleman & Ingham 1999). This was considered extremely dangerous for the female students, given that the health educators‘ and male students‘ versions of sexuality valued male hegemony and positioned women as sexually passive.
Sexualities other than heterosexual were constituted through this sex education program as abnormal and/or expressions of biological and psychological deficit. In this way, the sex education program not only excluded students who were unsure of their sexual orientation or who identified as non heterosexual, it constituted them as lesser than those students who identified as heterosexual. The demonstrably negative effect that similar approaches have had upon the self-esteem of same sex attracted students, or those unsure of their sexuality, have been clearly documented in connection to issues of youth suicide (Department of Health and Human Services 2001; Hillier et al. 1998). In terms of ensuring that all students were given access to knowledge regarding sexual health risks, the limited focus upon heterosexual acts of sex within this sex education program significantly undermined the potential for addressing STIs/BBVs and HIV/AIDS.
The inclusion of non-heterosexual practices within a context of social disease was also problematic, as it operated to authorise its abnormality and legitimised the regulation and policing of safe heterosexual practices by males through sex- based harassment (Connell 1995). Such masculine behaviour focused on both males and females although it was usually
… with a homophobic edge, which serves to both normalize particular constructions of masculinity while also determining where a boy is positioned within a hierarchical arrangement of masculinities (Mills 2001, p.4).
The health educators‘ dominant discourses did not account for the constitutive effect of social, cultural, economic, political and religious practices. Similarly, it did not consider how they shaped, authorised, normalised and produced individual experiences and knowledge of sex, sexuality and sexual decision- making. Accordingly, this sex education program legitimated the view that when individuals failed to act within a prescribed norm, their actions or behaviours could be constituted in terms of biological/physical constraints or personal/psychological deficit; the individual was in some way lacking, not the structure or process. Change or reform within this sex education program disallowed the transformation of existing social structures or practices; it required change from within individuals in order to conform to existing social structures or practices (Weedon 1997).
The health educators‘ dominant discourses positioned social practices as static and linear, which has considerable significance for addressing issues of sexual violence, homophobia, sexism and racism within a curriculum-based sex education program (Abel & Fitzgerald 2006; Epstein et al. 2003; Fine 1988; Rogow & Haberland 2005). For instance, those social and cultural versions of masculinity which prescribed and normalised hegemonic heterosexuality and positioned difference as a potential threat to the heterosexual males‘ investment in patriarchy, were not contested (Connell 2002).
As a result of the ways in which power operated to authorise and value the health educators‘ particular version of knowledge, the students‘ opinions regarding issues of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making were absent from most of the classroom transcripts. The students‘ opinions regarding sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making were voiced during the small group sessions, however, and it was then that the male students‘ overtly homophobic, sexually violent and discriminatory attitudes were evidenced. Due to the health educators‘ view, which constituted all students as having the right to express their own opinion, it was not possible to interrogate the homophobic, violent and discriminatory comments made.
As evidenced throughout the social worker‘s classroom transcripts, despite the male students‘ explicit sexually violent, homophobic, racist and sexist comments, the only strategy available within the discourse was to condemn the use of homophobic, racist or sexist language and threaten legal sanction.
Student: I mean why would you want to be like, want it in the arse, when there‘s so much muff out there [lots of laughter and calling out in agreement].
Social Worker: Ok, let‘s move on shall we.
Student: We went on a trip on the Spirit of Tasmania and we went up to this guy and said ‗Konichi wa you fucking nip‘ and this guy turns around and goes ‗ah, ah, fuck you‘! You know, like totally flipped … bloody nip!
Social Worker: Ok, well now does everyone know that it‘s actually illegal to make racist or homophobic comments in public? You can actually be charged.
threat of external legal sanctions that would not necessarily disrupt the status quo.
While the curriculum-based and the non-curriculum based sex education programs were implemented at the same time, the work of one group was not used to inform the work of the other. As a result, despite being notified of the male students‘ homophobic, violent and discriminatory comments, the HPE teachers did not use this knowledge to inform or change their curriculum-based sex education program. This significantly undermined the sex education program‘s potential for addressing issues of homophobia, sexual violence and discrimination despite the issues being among those targeted in the aims and objectives of the program‘s initial design.
The view of knowledge underpinning the sex education program prohibited a critical interrogation of the ways in which language produced and reproduced social inequalities. For instance, the girls were legitimated in their emotional response to issues of sex, sexuality and relationships, and they were encouraged to articulate their feelings in the all girl sessions and to empathise with others. The emphasis on the girls‘ role in maintaining and nurturing relationships with males was affirmed through this process (Davies 1993; Gilbert & Taylor 1991; Hiller 1998). In contrast, the boys‘ practice of remaining remote from issues of feelings and emotion was confirmed, and their resistance to discussing their role in relationships was normalised. The boys‘ use of technical language when discussing issues of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making was authorised and their versions of masculinity as rational were affirmed (Gilbert & Gilbert 1998; Hiller 1998).
The failure of the health educators‘ dominant discourses to acknowledge the role of language in the production of students‘ gendered subjectivities significantly undermined the sex education program‘s capacity to address issues of adolescent risk-taking behaviour. The discourses that were available to students during the production of their gendered subjectivities impacted greatly upon their attitudes toward sexual risk-taking behaviour (Abel & Fitzgerald 2006; Allen 2005; Connell 2005; Rogow & Haberland 2005). As such, the sex education program authorised and reproduced socially unjust, unethical and potentially dangerous gendered subject positions for both males and females.
The health educators‘ limited version of sexuality also impacted on the potential for change within the sex education program. Heterosexuality was established as normative in this program and the dominant discourses authorised a view of sexuality as innate and biologically determined; the dominant discourses and therefore the sex education program did not acknowledge the constitutive effect of social and cultural structures on sexuality or gender. The program was unable to interrogate the ways in which social and cultural practices are explicit in supporting the marginalisation of sexual difference and implicit in constructions of gender that disadvantaged some students in terms of choices regarding sexual behaviours and sexual decision-making.
The potential for change was also limited through the health educators‘ use of gendered stereotypes, sexual stereotypes, sexual innuendo, slang, and sexism. While the five health educators who delivered this sex education program were all dedicated teachers of health, their own socially constituted biases and assumptions and ontological positions were not interrogated. As such, their biases and assumptions were reproduced through their pedagogy, which ultimately reproduced the actual inequities that they were endeavouring to address (Kehily 2002; Szirom 1988).
The health educators did not assess the students‘ sexual knowledge prior to or on conclusion of the sex education program so were unable to confirm if, as a result of the program, the students had learnt anything new, extended their knowledge, or altered their views on sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making. These circumstances meant that the sex education program‘s effectiveness or potential for change could not be determined.
Without a critical pedagogy to interrogate the limitations and constraints of the versions of knowledge, views of gender and sexuality, and regulatory pedagogical processes, the sexual health program was marginalised by its failure to transform students understanding of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making, and its inability to open up student thinking to the possibilities of difference.