Abstract

RIBEIRO, Jorge; PONTES, Angela  and  SANTOS, Luísa. Conception and implementation of a sex education program: legislation vs literature. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2013, n.23, pp.179-198. ISSN 1645-7250.

Sex education is a process that accompanies individuals throughout their lives. The sociocultural changes of recent decades have revealed the need for a formal sex education that allows young people to relate with each other in a responsible and satisfactory way. In this context, the law in Portugal indicates that an approach to sex education in schools is mandatory. The goal of this article is to analyze the legislation related to the design and implementation of a project on sex education in class, and to compare the results of this analysis with those proposed by the scientific literature and from international organizations that develop projects in this area. We found out that, in general, legislation is in accordance with these directions: the purposes take into account a comprehensive perspective of sexuality, which seems to be in accordance with the most recommended approach, and it also seems to meet the general interests expressed by the students; fitting these projects to the educational project of the school can meet the need for participation of the community where the school is involved; the development of a project on sex education in class provides the possibility to adjust content and activities to the characteristics of the students for whom it is intended; the involvement of the family is also considered, attempting to ensure a consistency between the students’ formal and informal sex education, allowing them to take part in the implementation of projects, and still external partners, providing cooperation with experts outside the school, and the workload is appropriate, as well as its distribution throughout the school year, as required for this type of project. However, the individual characteristics of teachers and their willingness to integrate this type of project is not taken into account by the law, contrarily to what is recommended by the literature. We can thus say that, globally, the Portuguese law seems to meet the requirements of a sex education project implementation.

Keywords : health education; sex education; teaching.

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