Youth Sexuality Research Articles

Experiences and perceptions on sexuality, risk and STI/HIV prevention campaigns by university students. Designing a digital intervention.

This study reports on the qualitative phase of a study that seeks to design a digital intervention for the prevention of STI / HIV and promotion of sexual health in university students. The experience and perception that university students have about sexuality, risk and prevention campaigns are addressed through focus groups. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with key informants. The results reveal that sexual education is limited and restricted to the biological aspect, as well as loaded with prejudices and gender biases, which narrows the information provided to the student population. Wavering prevention strategies that fail to motivate students or offer them opportunities for making informed and independent decisions about their sexual health are apparent. The STI / HIV campaigns assessed are distant, fear-based and not inclusive. Interventions in sexual health do not weigh experiential aspects of youth sexuality, as they are based on models of ideal and stereotyped behavior, discarding first-person narratives and their rich complexity. It is imperative to innovate in the prevention of STI/HIV, formulating interventions based on an integrative, multidisciplinary and contextualized design that values the theory and experience of the target populations.

A Media Literacy Education Approach to High School Sexual Health Education: Immediate Effects of Media Aware on Adolescents' Media, Sexual Health, and Communication Outcomes.

Media may function as sex educators for adolescents; unfortunately, media messages often glamorize risky sexual behaviors and unhealthy relationships and neglect sexual health behaviors and communication. Media Aware is a web-based comprehensive sexual health program for high school students that uses a media literacy education approach. It is designed to improve adolescents’ critical thinking about media messages and provide medically-accurate information and skills building related to sexual health and communication. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2019-2020 with students (grades 9 and 10; n = 590) from 17 high schools across the United States. The sample was 53% female, 58% white/Caucasian; and 13% Hispanic/Latinx. One high school teacher per school and all of their 9th and 10th grade students were randomly assigned to either the intervention or delayed-intervention (control) condition. The study assessed the immediate (posttest) and short-term (3-month) effects of Media Aware on adolescents’ media, sexual health, and communication outcomes. For 9 of the 17 schools, students were home from school due to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic during the time of their 3-month data collection, which left the short-term analyses underpowered. However, several impacts of the program were found in the immediate posttest analyses. Media Aware was found to improve sexual health knowledge and redress inaccurate normative beliefs about the frequency of risky teen sex. Media Aware also improved critical thinking about media messages with demonstrated improvements in media message deconstruction skills and decreases in the perceived realism of media messages. Moderator analyses found some differential immediate effects of the program attributable to gender. Media Aware reduced girls’ normative beliefs about teen sex, generally, and increased their sexual health communication with parents as well as reduced boys’ acceptance of dating violence. Students gave positive feedback about Media Aware, especially related to the online format of the program. The results from this study provide evidence that Media Aware is an effective web-based program for positively enhancing high school students’ media, sexual health, and sexual health communication outcomes.

Youth Sexuality, Responsibility, and the Opening of the Brook Advisory Centres in London and Birmingham in the 1960s

AbstractThis article takes the opening of the Brook Advisory Centres in London (1964) and Birmingham (1966) as a comparative case study for exploring the public debate on youth sexuality. The two centers were the first in postwar Britain specifically dedicated to the provision of advice on birth control and emotional problems to unmarried and young people. By focusing on an initiative that launched amid rising concerns over illegitimacy and promiscuity, the article engages with the debate over social change in the 1960s and the so-called permissive society. The author argues that the notion of responsibility became a key paradigm for supporters of a new sexual culture. Combining archival material, media analysis, and oral history interviews, the author shows that in constructing the need for a service for unmarried people, the Brook Advisory Centres faced accusations of encouraging promiscuity. Their main line of defense was the production of a narrative that stressed the notion of responsibility and moral guidance for unmarried people in avoiding unwanted babies. And in the debate around youth sexuality, locality mattered. In Birmingham, the prospect of formal contraceptive advice for unmarried girls was violently opposed by church members and family-planning doctors, whereas London witnessed the creation of a viable discourse with an emphasis on sexual responsibility.

Love or crime? Law-making and the policing of teenage sexuality in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT Age-of-consent legislation serves to protect children from sexual abuse. In Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, however, the reform of laws against sexual violence has led to a criminalisation of non-violent and consensual sexual interactions with and between underage teenagers. These reforms have been inspired by evolving international norms, but discourses in both countries emphasised the regulation of female and youth sexuality over norms of self-determination. This contribution unpacks the interlocking actions of activists, parliaments, police, judges and parents, which turned protective anti-sexual violence legislation into an instrument of patriarchal control. Methodologically, the comparative analysis charts discourses and practices in both countries based on ethnographic, qualitative and statistical data. We trace legislative debates, demonstrate the significance of policing and prosecution of consensual youth sexuality, and discuss incentives for police and justice institutions to engage in this field. We contrast young people’s diverse views on underage sexuality with parental attempts to uphold patriarchal norms with the help of the police. The conclusion discusses the social cost of criminalising consensual teenage sexuality and asks whether these violent interventions indicate a crisis of patriarchal authority.

Panic at the Picture Show: Southern Movie Theatre Culture and the Struggle to Desegregate

This paper explores the complex desegregation process of movie theatres in the southern United States. Building off of historiography that investigates regulations of postwar teenage sexuality and recent scholarly work that acknowledges the link between sexuality and civil rights, I argue that movie theatres had a uniquely delayed desegregation process due to perceived sexual intrigue of the dark, private theatre space. Through analysis of drive-in and hardtop theatres, censorship of on-screen content, and youth involvement in desegregation, I contend that anxieties of interracial intimacy and unsupervised teenage sexuality produced this especially prolonged integration process.

Panic at the Picture Show: Southern Movie Theatre Culture and the Struggle to Desegregate

This paper explores the complex desegregation process of movie theatres in the southern United States. Building off of historiography that investigates regulations of postwar teenage sexuality and recent scholarly work that acknowledges the link between sexuality and civil rights, I argue that movie theatres had a uniquely delayed desegregation process due to perceived sexual intrigue of the dark, private theatre space. Through analysis of drive-in and hardtop theatres, censorship of on-screen content, and youth involvement in desegregation, I contend that anxieties of interracial intimacy and unsupervised teenage sexuality produced this especially prolonged integration process.

Elements of Myth in David Almond’s Fiction

The study considers how motifs and plots borrowed from mythology function in David Almond’s fiction for children. Almond uses them to analyze the fundamental concepts of love and death, as well as to discuss teenage sexuality. He highlights the role of creative activities in teen identity development. Myth is also incorporated into descriptions of children undergoing rites of passage.

메타버스 내 청소년 아바타 성착취 처벌 관련 쟁점

The tendency of Korean youth to overreliance on smartphones is getting serious day by day. Paradoxically, it can be said that this is a very clear indicator that the amount of time young people are active in the metaverse is increasing. In particular, as children''s dependence on smartphones is increasing every year, metaverse life will be regarded as a very everyday culture for the youth generation. The fact that 70% of users of virtual worlds such as Zepeto and Roblox are teenagers shows that Metaverse is already positioned as a very important living space for them. Therefore, it is very urgent to take countermeasures against a series of acts of sexual exploitation against youth that are taking place in the metaverse. Here, the direction is presented. First, it is necessary to decide whether the metaverse is defined as a game or as a social networking service. Second, it should be considered that the biggest attribute of the metaverse is that there is no limit to simultaneous participation. Third, it is not desirable that all avatar owners of the youth image in the virtual world be considered under the age of 19, the subject of protection under the Youth Sexuality Protection Act. Also, it is not desirable to prepare countermeasures on the assumption that all avatars of youth images or players of avatars who sexual harassment characters are adults. Fourth, there is a need for social consensus on the limits of personal information protection for users of Metaverse. Fifth, it is necessary to discuss to what extent users'' freedom of expression(including sexual behavior) and privacy will be protected by reflecting the metaverse''s borderless and identity(avatar, character) attributes.

PROBLEMS OF SEXUAL SOCIALIZATION OF STUDENT YOUTH IN THE LIGHT OF “STANDARDS OF SEXUAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE”

In the late 20-th – early 21-st centuries in society under the influence of globalization and informatization there were dramatic changes in the field of sexual values of domestic youth: pluralism and tolerance in relation to sexual life; autonomization of adolescent and youthful sexuality from external forms of control; commercialization of sex (prostitution, pornography, eroticization of advertising, etc.); rehabilitation of unproductive forms of sexuality; legalization of same-sex love; etc. There was a need to radically improve the theoretical and practical solution to the problems of sexual socialization. The first step towards the implementation of this goal was the adoption by the European Union in 2010 of the “Standards of Sexual Education in Europe”, which marked the beginning of the creation of a regulatory framework for sexual socialization of pupils and was to promote a holistic system of sexual education and provide children and young people with objective, scientifically reliable information about all aspects of sexuality.
 The aim of the article: Based on the analysis of “Standards of Sexual Education in Europe” to prove the need and relevance of the introduction in educational institutions of Ukraine sexual socialization of the school children, to indicate the main steps in the implementation of the best foreign experience in light of the recommendations of this document. The article points out the Standards’ emphasis on the mistakes of traditional sexual socialization, which tried to misgive the youth associative relationship between sex and danger, focusing on the potential risks of sexuality. The article on a large array of research material shows the low level of sexual education and sexual culture of Ukrainian schoolchildren, noted factors that hinder the introduction of sexual education courses recommended by WHO for all European countries.
 The article on the experience of educational systems of the European Union emphasizes the positive aspects of the introduction of systematic courses of sexual education into the domestic education system. A detailed study of the “Standards of Sexual Education in Europe” and the study of the staging of sexual socialization in foreign countries gave the authors the opportunity to justify the need to use a number of elements of foreign experience in Ukraine. The article defines criteria for assessing the successful implementation of sexual socialization: sexual issues are considered and discussed openly as a positive, integrative part of health; sexual education programs must be adapted to the specific needs and realities of the respective country; there is state support for measures on sexual socialization; sexual socialization takes into account the gender aspect; mandatory linkage of sexual socialization to premarital training of schoolchildren and responsible parenthood; partnership of schools and families, government and non-governmental organizations, various consulting centers in solving the problems of sexual socialization of schoolchildren, etc.

Identifying Implementation Drivers for Teen Sexual Health Education Curricula.

This article focuses on examining the implementation of evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programming in a select school district. Results are presented based on the following implementation drivers: (1) actions taken by leadership to make decisions, provide guidance, and support how the school site and community-based organizations are functioning in support of implementation; (2) actions taken to ensure competent staff delivery of the curricula; and (3) actions taken to create and sustain a hospitable context in order to implement the interventions at the school site. The need for adolescent sexual health education is evident in this geographic location where Hispanic or Latino teens consistently have higher birth rates among race and ethnicities that are routinely reported. For 2018, when this project started, those rates were 40 births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19 years. For 2018, the birth rates for African Americans was 31 and for Whites was 17 per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19 years. The project goals were to reduce teen birth rates by (1) providing evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention curricula to youth aged 11 to 19 years over the course of the 5-year project period, (2) training school staff and community members in the curricula, and (3) generating community support of youth access to reproductive health care and education. Despite a funding interruption to implementation of the project and the impact of COVD-19, educational programming was provided to 9,616 youth. The article details the key implementation strategies and solutions so that other practitioners can consider application of these implementation drivers in their own adolescent health education programming.

Sexualisierte Gewalt in der Erfahrung Jugendlicher: Ergebnisse einer repr\xe4sentativen Befragung

ZusammenfassungHintergrundSeit 1998 erhebt die Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA) im Rahmen ihrer Repräsentativbefragung „Jugendsexualität“ Daten zur Verbreitung von sexualisierter Gewalt im Jugendalter. Seither wurde das Messinstrument stetig weiterentwickelt und kann somit auch einen Beitrag zur Bearbeitung der Forschungslücken im Bereich der Prävalenzforschung leisten.ZielAnhand der Ergebnisse der 9. Trendwelle sollen die Prävalenzen erlebter körperlicher und nichtkörperlicher sexualisierter Gewalt in der Erfahrung junger Menschen sowie Daten zu Täterkreisen und zum Disclosure-Verhalten Betroffener dargestellt werden.MethodeAn der kombiniert mündlich-schriftlichen CAPI-Befragung (Computer-assisted Personal Interviewing) nahmen Jugendliche (14–17 Jahre) und junge Erwachsene (18–25 Jahre) teil (N = 6032). Der Fragenkatalog wurde im Rahmen der 2019 durchgeführten 9. Welle u. a. um die Frage nach Lebenszeitprävalenzen zu nichtkörperlicher Gewalt erweitert. Erste Ergebnisse werden hier deskriptiv dargestellt.ErgebnisseSexualisierte Gewalt im Jugendalter wird mehrheitlich innerhalb der eigenen Peergruppe (unter gleichaltrigen Bekannten) erfahren. Auch hinsichtlich des Disclosure-Verhaltens betroffener Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen spielen Gleichaltrige eine übergeordnete Rolle.DiskussionDie Daten bestärken Ergebnisse anderer Dunkelfeldstudien zu den Unterschieden des Erlebens sexualisierter Gewalt in Kindheit und Jugendalter. Die vorliegende Studie trägt zu einem kontinuierlichen Monitoring bei und kann auch zukünftig sexualisierte Gewalt in der aktuellen Generation junger Menschen erfassen. Es gilt, den Studienergebnissen gezielte, evidenzbasierte und zielgruppenspezifische Präventionsmaßnahmen anzuschließen.

The Socio-cultural Factors that Influence Academic Performance of Public Primary Schools in Murang'a South Sub County, Kenya

Literature has indicated that academic performance is affected both positively and negatively by socio-cultural factors. UNESCO (2015) reveals that student achievement is highly influenced by the community and/or parents attitude towards education. Performance in national examinations is embraced as an indicator of quality in education systems that are examination oriented. The purpose of the study is to establish the socio-cultural factors influencing academic performance of public primary schools in Murang'a South Sub County. The study adopted a descriptive survey design utilizing both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The study involved a sample of 21 deputy head teachers, 105 teachers and 210 pupils making a total of 336 participants. Data were collected using a pupils’ questionnaire, focus group discussions for the deputy head teachers and teachers, and an observation checklist. Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 employing descriptive statistics that include frequencies and percentages while qualitative data were analyzed inductively (thematically). It was found that majority parents/guardians shown less concern over homework the homework of their pupils. This was de-motivating to both the teacher and pupil personnel. Initiation rite of passage (circumcision and clitoridectomy) bred psychological, moral and social unrest in schools. The impact of involvement in early teenage sex and dating was immense. The outlawed Mungiki sect was found to have a large network in Murang'a South Sub County and penetration into school promoting absenteeism, hence loss of instructional time; instilling fear to the pupils, teaching personnel and school community, thus emotional imbalance; drug and substances abuse; and violence destroying self-esteem and emotional well-being among pupils resulting to low academic achievement. A recommendation is made that for collaboration between the Ministry of Education, Gender, Children and Social Development; and Youth Affairs and Sports to educate all stakeholders in the societal beliefs, values and practices which hinder education outcomes. Keyword: socio-cultural factors, academic performance, public primary schools, Murang'a South Sub County, Kenya

Sexual- und Verh\xfctungsverhalten von Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen in Deutschland. Aktuelle Ergebnisse der Repr\xe4sentativbefragung \u201eJugendsexualit\xe4t\u201c

ZusammenfassungHintergrundSeit 1980 führt die Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA) in regelmäßigen Abständen die Repräsentativbefragungen „Jugendsexualität“ durch. Dieses kontinuierliche Monitoring generiert Erkenntnisse zur sexuellen und reproduktiven Gesundheit von jungen Menschen in Deutschland, die eine wichtige Basis einer bedarfs- und zielgruppengerechten Entwicklung von Maßnahmen der Sexualaufklärung und Familienplanung darstellen.ZielDas aktuelle Sexual- und Verhütungsverhalten von Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen soll anhand erster deskriptiver Ergebnisse der 9. Trendwelle zusammenfassend dargestellt werden.Material und MethodenAn der Befragung nahmen insgesamt N = 6032 Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene teil. Die Datenerhebung erfolgte in 2019 als kombiniert mündlich-schriftliche Interviews (Computer-assisted Personal Interviewing, CAPI).ErgebnisseEin zentraler Befund der vorliegenden Trendwelle ist, dass der Anteil an Jugendlichen, die beim ersten Geschlechtsverkehr jünger als 17 Jahre sind, seit einigen Jahren rückläufig ist. Zur Kontrazeption setzten Jugendliche am häufigsten das Kondom ein, die Nutzung der Pille ist im Trend deutlich rückläufig.DiskussionDie Daten der aktuellen Trendwelle weisen ein sicheres und verantwortungsbewusstes Verhütungsverhalten von jungen Menschen in Deutschland nach. Trotzdem gilt es, das Engagement im Bereich der sexuellen Gesundheitsförderung aufrechtzuerhalten und zielgruppenspezifische Präventionsmaßnahmen weiter auszubauen. Denn nur so kann die sexuelle und reproduktive Gesundheit der nachfolgenden Generation gewährleistet werden.

Mapping the literature on child marriage: A critical engagement

AbstractU.S. “child marriage”—marriage including at least one person under the age of 18—is legal and practiced in 44 states. In this article, I map the existing literature on child marriage and offer insights on how child marriage can expand our sociological understandings of marriage, gender inequality, and youth sexualities. Social scientists have almost exclusively focused on child marriage in the Global South at the expense of understanding child marriage in the Global North, which I argue reinforces racist and xenophobic narratives that cast child marriage as a non‐Western social problem. The research on U.S. child marriage that does exist focuses on the consequences, rather than the causes, of child marriage, which may shift focus away from a structural understanding of how intersecting inequalities shape girls' likelihood of getting married as minors. I position a sociology of U.S. child marriage at the intersection of sociological understandings of marriage and gender inequality and critical research on youth sexualities. I conclude by calling for intersectional research on U.S. child marriage that builds on these literatures, examining how girls' sexualities are racialized, gendered, and classed within the institution of marriage.

The impact of sexual education and socialization on sexual satisfaction, attitudes, and self-efficacy

This study examined the relation between school-based sexual education and parental messages about sex received in adolescence, and sexual attitudes and experiences in young adulthood. Participants—99 Canadian undergraduate students aged 17–25 years—reported that their sexual education largely focused on traditional topics (e.g., negative health outcomes, physiology, etc.), while social and emotional topics were less likely to be formally covered. Parental sexual socialization that was more comfortable and accepting of teen sexuality was related to more permissive sexual attitudes in young adults, but was unrelated to self-efficacy or sexual satisfaction. When all variables were examined using hierarchical regression, sexual education and parental socialization did not predict sexual satisfaction. However, mediation analysis revealed an indirect effect of sexual self-efficacy on the relation between sexual education and sexual satisfaction. More comprehensive and higher-quality sexual education increased sexual self-efficacy, which was then related to higher sexual satisfaction beyond the role of gender and relationship status. This provides insight into the mechanism by which sexual education in Canada may impact sexual satisfaction. The influence of parental socialization and school-based sexual education are apparent and complementary. Both sources of information and values (parents/school) offered benefits for young adults’ positive sexual attitudes, but school-based education appears to be key. How sexual education is delivered (e.g., if teachers are knowledgeable and comfortable discussing topics) may be even more important than the content itself. These findings suggest that prioritizing teacher training to improve their comfort with delivery of sexual education programming would improve adolescents and young adults’ sexual lives.

To Protect and Responsibilize: The Discursive Explosion of Combining Youth Sexuality, Human Trafficking, and Online Spaces

The emergence of social media and digital technologies has resulted in new protectionist laws, policies, and mandates aimed at regulating the sexual behaviour of women and girls in online spaces. These neoliberal responsiblization strategies are aimed at shaping good, young digital citizens and have become further amplified through increased concerns about domestic human trafficking and victim vulnerability. This protectionism, however, is not always reflected in courtroom proceedings, revealing a tension between the protection and responsiblization of victims of trafficking in Canada. Using R v Oliver-Machado (2013) as a case study, we examine the ways in which the defence counsel’s reliance on commonplace defence tactics used in sexual assault cases responsibilize the young complainants in an attempt to discredit their victimhood and reconstruct them as online sexual risk takers.

Changing Patterns in the Types and Methods of Abuse of Illegal Drugs in Sri Lanka: A Study Based on Five Recent Case Series

Substance abuse is a global problem. The types of drugs, patterns of abuse and other demographic characters change over time. Five incidences including two case series are discussed here. They involve teenagers and young adults including fist-time users of cocktails of drugs including relatively newer substances of abuse in Sri Lanka such as amphetamines and methamphetamines. Illegal gatherings organized through the internet such as Facebook parties are becoming commoner in Sri Lanka providing a safe platform for experiencing illegal drugs and casual sex for teenagers including school children. Recreational abuse of these drugs in the dance culture by teenagers and young adults poses many medical, social and psychological problems. Young female substance abusers are on the rise. Chemsex or the abuse of psychoactive substances to enhance sexual desire, performance and to achieve a ‘carefree and relaxed mind-set’ during casual sex is a relatively newer entity in Sri Lanka which is reported in these case series. Rave parties, beach parties and Facebook parties pose many new challenges to the law enforcement, Government Analyst and the Judicial Medical Officer in Sri Lanka. Multi-disciplinary research and infrastructure development are necessary to successfully face these challenges.

The Church, the School and the Family as Powerful Primary Teen Sex Educators

Human beings are sexual beings throughout their entire lives. The stages of sexual development are a human developmental process involving biological and behavioral components. It does not take much insight or cultural awareness to realize that we need to be concerned about the culture in which our children are growing in. The patterns of behavior among the youth reveal morality level is at an all-time low; long regarded as a consequent factor of modernization. The philosophies of materialism, autonomy, entitlement, and hedonism beckon them at every turn. Moral values such as honesty, obedience, kindness, respect, hard work, self-discipline, humility and fear of God have significantly been affected by modernization. Lack of self-control, dishonesty and careless attitude is the character of modern youth. Sexual risk behavior among Kenyan youths is a major public health concern. Nearly 400,000 young women aged between 12 and 19 years become pregnant in Kenya each year, most of them unintentionally, and half of the roughly 200,000 new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) diagnosed each year are among 15 to 24 years old. Sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure. Grounded in respect for the body and for the vulnerability that intimacy brings, this sexual ethic fosters physical, emotional, and spiritual health. A great deal of research attention has been and remain devoted to understanding what puts adolescents at risk to these outcomes, given their enormous social, economic, and public health consequences. More effort is required to address these risky sexual activities among youths. One of the ways is through the identification of additional contributors to this behavior that have been understudied factors that put teens at risk and levers that can be used in preventive interventions.

“They Assume That You’re Not Having Sex”: A Qualitative Exploration of How Paediatric Healthcare Providers Can Have Positive Sexuality-Related Conversations with Youth with Disabilities

Every individual should have equal access to sexuality-related information and services. Regrettably, societal stigma revolves around the sexuality of youth with disabilities, with a common misconception that they are asexual, and therefore do not need to be taught about sexuality and sexual health. Healthcare providers (PHCPs) have reported barriers to having sexuality-related conversations with youth with disabilities, such as lack of time and personal discomfort. As such, we sought to examine what might facilitate PHCPs to have conversations about sexuality with their paediatric clients and families. A qualitative focus group study using a descriptive exploratory approach was conducted. Five PHCP participants from a paediatric rehabilitation hospital participated in a focus group. Five young adult (YA) participants with a self-reported disability took part in a separate focus group or individual interviews. Descriptive thematic analysis was used to identify, analyze, and report themes in the data. Results showed that persisting assumptions impede children and youth with disabilities from exploring their sexuality; that autonomy, safety, trust, and consent are critical topics that should be addressed in sexuality-related clinical conversations; and that sexuality-related services should be improved by providing greater disability-specific information, having age-appropriate discussions from an early age, and increasing interdisciplinary care. Normalizing sexuality-related discourse in clinical settings may help youth with disabilities construct a healthy sexual identity, fulfill their sexual needs, and develop adequate skills to deal with sexual situations safely and appropriately.

Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ Issues in Primary Initial Teacher Education Programs

Existing research has explored inclusion in education, however, issues related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people, with some notable exceptions, have, until recently, seldom been included in any meaningful academic discussion. Issues of youth race, gender and sexuality have been interrogated as discrete issues. This small but growing body of research demonstrates the potential impacts of intersectional disadvantages experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia (Uink, Liddelow-Hunt, Daglas, & Ducasse, 2020). This article seeks to explore the existing research and advocate for the embedding of a critical pedagogy of care in primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE) curricula, inclusive of diversity of race, ethnicity, socio-economic-status, gender and sexuality. Employing intersectionality theory, this research will examine the specific disadvantages that arise as the result of occupying multiple minority demographic categories, which are relational, complex and shifting, rather than fixed and independent. Primary educators are well positioned to name disadvantage, racism and heterosexism, make them visible and, through culturally responsive pedagogical approaches and inclusive curricula, challenge the status quo. To ensure that learning and teaching moves beyond stereotypes, primary curricula should be representative of all students and present alternate ways of being human in culturally appropriate, positive ways, to the benefit of all students. ITE programs provide the ideal arena to equip teachers with the knowledge and competency to respond to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people.