Sexuality Workshop For Adolescents: Participative Strategy For Collective Knowledge Construction

Abstract

Background: This is a quali- quantitative research and was conducted in a basic health unit aiming to investigate female adolescents’ knowledge, practices and attitudes concerning sexuality.
 Methodology: The action-research methodology was used to develop workshop activities because it is a participative methodology. The workshop was performed in two modules with the participation of 29 female adolescents, and data were collected by questionnaires addressing two groups of adolescents who had or had not begun sexual activity.
 Results: The representations about sexuality were related to sexual relationships and showed erroneous information concerning sexually transmitted infections, which makes the adolescents vulnerable. Many of them reported not to know anything about infections or contraceptive methods, to know about contraceptive pills and condoms and to have doubts about condom use, and when experiencing sexuality, gender manifestation was present in the adolescents’ descriptions.
 Conclusion: Strict gender roles and a patriarchal and a chauvinistic social structure determine adolescents’ behaviors that make them believe in two opposing worlds, the masculine and the feminine worlds. With this regard, identities are constructed in multiple institutions that produce and reproduce differences. Among such institutions, schools, families and the media are noteworthy, since, despite social and individual resistance movements, they impose behavioral models according to prevailing social practices and to the objectives of the consumer and producer market. It is important to reflect about the inclusion of sexual diversity in order to act in this reality by understanding sexuality in the perspective of human rights.
 Key words: Sexuality, Adolescent, Health.