Search

The broad aim of most sexuality educational programs is to improve and promote health among students (Epstein and Johnson 1998; Allen 2005; Aggleton and Campbell 2000). Various education programs aim for young people to receive preparation for their sexual lives and be educated against sexual abuse and exploitation (Carmody 2009; Bay-Cheng 2003), unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). More contemporary debates about sexuality education argue the value of endeavoring to educate students about sexual pleasure and desire, aiming to bring about attitudinal changes at the local level of social and political activity (Fields 2008; Lesko 2010). With these intentions the teaching and learning of sexuality education is positioned to be invested, not only in conveying sexual information, but also in producing a specific kind of sexual individual. In this frame, the effectiveness of the mobilization and maneuvering of this subject within schools and in the classroom is essentially based on pedagogy. A closer analysis of the intricate processes of how teachers' pedagogies regulate sexual identities and sexual behavior thus becomes paramount to better understanding effective teaching of sexuality education. This article is about the purposes and the processes of teaching comprehensive sexuality education to diverse communities. It begins with a brief exploration of current pedagogies of sexuality education in Australia and New Zealand. It then presents overlapping but often disputed understandings of sexuality education as well as critical pedagogy to demonstrate critical pedagogy's potential significance for creating comprehensive sexuality education for diverse communities. This is followed by a critical examination of the ways in which teachers' pedagogy in Australian and New Zealand schools explicitly communicates the ''critical'' oriented intent of critical pedagogy with reference to four specific areas: dialogue, critique, counter hegemony, and praxis.

This paper explores the methodological politics of researching at the intersections of sexuality, culture and religion in secondary schools. It draws on experiences during a project concerned with how to address cultural and religious diversity in sexuality education in Australia and New Zealand. The paper focuses on two methodological sticking points, one occurring inside academia and the other outside, in schools. The first coheres around the process of gaining ethics approval from multiple institutional committees and the second accesses schools for participation. These sticking points are conceptualized as effects of a set of discursive and material constraints which are idiosyncratic to school-based sexualities research. We argue that discourses of sexuality and young people are mobilized in both spaces and intersect with a social moment of "risk anxiety" in ways that shape the methodological possibilities of the research. These discourses serve to constitute sexualities research as "risky" and "controversial", an image which impedes the generation of new knowledge in the field. By rendering challenges of this research visible and discursively deconstructing the reasons for them, we refuse to dismiss school-based sexualities research as "too hard". Instead, we aim to keep this topic firmly on the educational research agenda by alerting researchers to its challenges so they may prepare for them.

Abstract: In industrial countries, a number of factors put indigenous peoples at increased risk of HIV infection. National surveillance data between 1999 and 2008 provided diagnoses for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Australia), First Nations, Inuit and Métis (Canada excluding Ontario and Quebec) and Māori (New Zealand). Each country provided similar data for a non-indigenous comparison population. Direct standardisation used the 2001 Canadian Aboriginal male population for comparison of five-year diagnosis rates in 1999–2003 and 2004–2008. Using the general population as denominators, we report diagnosis ratios for presumed heterosexual transmission, men who have sex with men (MSM) and intravenous drug users (IDU). Age standardised HIV diagnosis rates in indigenous peoples in Canada in 2004–2008 (178.1 and 178.4/100 000 for men and women respectively) were higher than in Australia (48.5 and 12.9/100 000) and New Zealand (41.9 and 4.3/100 000). Higher HIV diagnosis rates related to heterosexual contact among Aboriginal peoples, especially women, in Canada confirm a widening epidemic beyond the conventional risk groups. This potential of a generalised epidemic requires urgent attention in Aboriginal communities; available evidence can inform policy and action by all stakeholders. Although less striking in Australia and New Zealand, these findings may be relevant to indigenous peoples in other countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]