"I Could Have Done Everything and Why Not?": Young Women's Complex Constructions of Sexual Agency in the Context of Sexualities Education in Life Orientation in South African Schools

Autor/inn/en	Kruger, Lou-Marie; Shefer, Tamara; Oakes, Antoinette
Titel	"I Could Have Done Everything and Why Not?": Young Women's Complex Constructions of Sexual Agency in the Context of Sexualities Education in Life Orientation in South African Schools
Quelle	In: Perspectives in Education, 33 (2015) 2, S.30-48 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0258-2236
Schlagwörter	Gender Issues; Females; Civil Rights; Power Structure; Gender Bias; Blacks; Sexuality; Social Attitudes; Foreign Countries; Birth; Contraception; Sex Education; Grade 10; Secondary School Students; Focus Groups; Semi Structured Interviews; Decision Making; South Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Geschlechterfrage; Weibliches Geschlecht; Bürgerrechte; Grundrechte; Zivilrecht; Geschlechterstereotyp; Black person; Schwarzer; Sexualität; Social attidude; Soziale Einstellung; Ausland; Geburt; Empfängnisverhütung; Sex instruction; Sexualaufklärung; Sexualerziehung; Sexualkunde; Sekundarschüler; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Südafrika; Süd-Afrika; Republik Südafrika; Südafrikanische Republik
Abstract	Progressive policies protecting women's rights to make reproductive decisions and the recent increase in literature exploring female sexual agency do not appear to have impacted on more equitable sexual relations in all contexts. In South Africa, gender power inequalities, intersecting with other forms of inequality in society, pose a challenge for young women's control over their sexual and reproductive health. The article focuses on a group of young Coloured South African women's understandings of their sexual agency, in an attempt to explore how it is explicitly and implicitly shaped by school Life Orientation (LO) sexuality programmes. We found young women constructed their agency as simultaneously enabled and constrained in complex ways: on the one hand, the explicit communication was that they should have agency and take responsibility for themselves sexually, whereas the implicit communication seemed to convey that what they really thought and felt about sex and sexuality was not important. In addition, heteronormative gender roles, in which men are assumed to take the lead in sexual matters, appear to be reproduced in LO sexuality education messages and further complicate young women's constructions of their sexual agency. The implications of these findings for LO sexuality programmes are discussed. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	University of the Free State Faculty of Education. P.O. Box 339, Bioemfontein 9300, South Africa. Tel: +27-51-401-2368; e-mail: PiE@ufs.ac.za; Web site: http://www.perspectives-in-education.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01