Unpacking Ideas of Sexuality in Childhood: What do primary teachers and parents say?

Abstract

AbstractChildren who engage in perceived sexual actions face possible marginalization, isolation and exclusion in schools. The author's counselling practice included numerous examples where effects of adults' understanding have led to over reactive and punitive responses on children. This article complements a political ethic of social justice and supporting children's agency—that is, children as actors and childhood as being and becoming. Teachers and parents of primary school children were interviewed as part of a current doctoral project on discourses of childhood sexuality in Aotearoa, New Zealand. In focus groups and individual interviews, six teachers and seven parents of children in one primary school responded to vignettes on children's actions designed from counselling and anecdotal evidence of children's experiences in New Zealand primary schools. Participants' thoughts, ideas and reflections, including personal stories, were stimulated by the vignettes. Their understandings and perceptions of s...