An evaluation of the Cheshire Sexual Health Promotion project

This project report discusses an evaluation study of the Sexual Health Promotion project in Cheshire, which ran from 2000 to 2004.The project was commissioned by the steering group of the Sexual Health Promotion project and funded by South Cheshire Health Authority

Impact of ERA research assessment on university behaviour and their staff

In early 2012, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) undertook research into the effects of the ERA upon university staff involved in research. This was an exploratory, multi-method study conducted between April and September 2012 that included a national survey of 39 senior research administrators, eight focus groups at four institutions, eleven recorded and non-recorded interviews at five institutions, and a Workshop in Melbourne that involved 35 Early Career Researchers.The study acknowledges that institutional behaviour around research performance is changing, but in ways that take autonomy away from researchers, that rewards managerialism, and thus that undermines the public interest, on the basis that the public interest is understood as delivering Australian society public benefit through a world-class, sustainable and diverse research sector. In particular, the primary concern that the NTEU has with the ERA is its susceptibility to misuse by institutions through poor research management practices, and the risk posed to the intergity of the ‘research fabric’ through attacks on intellectual freedo

Teachers’ views of teaching sex education: pedagogies and models of delivery

This paper is based on a study of 17 secondary schools in an inner-city area of England deemed to have very high levels of teenage pregnancies. The New Labour Government argued that academic achievements and effective labour-market participation are inhibited by early or 'premature' parenthood (Social Exclusion Unit 1999). It therefore set in place policies to address these issues efectively in schools, through a revised school achievement agenda and a revised Sex & Relationship Education (SRE) programme. In this paper, we concentrate on the role and views of personal, social and/or health education coordinators charged with the delivery of SRE in secondary schools. We consider the way a broad-based, inclusive curriculum and pastoral programme fits into the subject-based and assessed curriculum of secondary schools for 11-16 where there is no tradition of open discussion of sexual matters. The legitimacy of teaching about sex and relationships in school has been hotly contested. The question of how to deal with teenage pregnancy and sexuality remains politically charged and sensitive and the teacher's role is thus contentious. We present a range of views about the professional or other pressures on schools, especially teachers, discussing difficulties within each of the main models of delivery. Teachers reprt considerable anxiety about SRE as a subject and its low status inthe curriculum, committed though they are to teaching it. This links with what is now seen as an overarching culture of anxiety regarding sex in contemporary society. Many teachers think that attending to young people's personal and social development - and especially their sexual identities - could help their education careers and academic achievement. Thus, from the teachers' accounts, we argue that there are important links between the revised sex education curriculum and the new emphasis on the achievement agenda in secondary schools in the UK

The Melting Border

This study analyzes in detail for the first time the mutual influence between Mexica and Mexican communities in the United States

When do we empathize?

According to a motor theory of empathy, empathy results from the automatic activation of emotion triggered by the observation of someone else's emotion. It has been found that the subjective experience of emotions and the observation of someone else experiencing the same emotion activate overlapping brain areas. These shared representations of emotions (SRE) could be the key for the understanding of empathy. However, if the automatic activation of SRE suffi ces to induce empathy, we would be in a permanent emotional turmoil. In contrast, it seems intuitively that we do not empathize all the time and that far from being automatic, empathy should be explained by a complex set of cognitive and motivational factors. I will provide here a new account of the automaticity of empathy, starting from a very simple question: when do we empathize? We need to distinguish clearly the activation of SRE and empathy. I will provide a model that accounts both for the automaticity of the activation of SRE and for the selectiveness of empathy. As Prinz says about imitation, the problem is not so much to account for the ubiquitous occurrence of empathy, but rather for its notorious nonoccurrence in many situations

Sexuality and gender in UK high schools:a policy analysis and case study of one Midlands-based school

In this thesis I contribute to the expansion of queer and critical psychology by examining gender and sexuality within a high school setting, with specific reference to ‘sex education’ policies and teaching. Explicit exploration of sexuality and genders beyond the binary have hitherto received little research attention, with much of the focus of research being a more generalised approach looking at ‘young people’s experiences’ of generalised sex and relationship education (SRE). My research, by comparison, considered the topics of gender and sexuality specifically, both within the topics as taught, and paying due consideration to the performative nature of gender and sexuality within the school (including within the classroom). My research brings together ideas from critical psychology and queer psychology, and working from a social constructionist position, explores portrayals of gender and sexuality. I also consider how policies that might be expected to inform the teaching of SRE situate topics of gender and sexuality. The research presented draws on four different sources of qualitative data: SRE policies of schools across the West Midlands; from within one school, classroom observation data of SRE classes from years 7 and 10, focus groups with pupils from years 8 and 10, and interviews with five members of staff. These data are analysed using critical realism-informed thematic analysis. In the first analysis chapter (chapter four) I report how SRE policy documents from schools across the West Midlands position SRE. In chapter five I examine how the concepts of gender and sexuality have been both problematised and simplified within the classroom. In chapter six I look further at the constructions of gender and sexuality within the educational environment. In chapter seven I consider the personal and structural barriers that were felt to be in place by staff and students when teaching gender and sexuality. In my concluding chapter I discuss the contributions of my research and taking the significant changes that occurred within the SRE landscape into consideration, I identify some possible areas for future research

Are We Nearly There Yet? Struggling to Understand Young People as Sexual Subjects

This paper seeks to explore how the academic concept of ‘sexual subjectivity’ appears in government Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) publications (researched between 2000 and 2010), and the understandings of key stakeholders. This follows work by Louisa Allen (and others), suggesting that there is a knowledge/practice gap within school-based SRE, which could be addressed by acknowledging young people as legitimate sexual subjects. Although much important work has been written on the concept of sexual subjectivity in wider popular and subcultural contexts, exploring the concept through an analysis of SRE curricula and stakeholders has much to contribute to the narrowing of the knowledge/practice gap. This could contribute to the training and self-reflection of practitioners, as well as assisting them in making the case for more balanced SRE guidelines. I conclude that a more confident and nuanced recognition of young people’s sexual subjectivity is also important in the context of contemporary panics over the sexualisation of young people

Making waves in education

Making Waves in Education is a book of a collaborative nature, being a collection of chapters written by undergraduates studying B.A. Hons in Education at the Universities of Plymouth and York. Thirteen chapters, each from a different student, cover topics from learning theories to sex education, home education and autism. The chapters are well-organised and written, and they cover key topics in an accessible and thoughtful way. The chapters are generally well - referenced and present critical and balanced arguments. Many use hard statistics in an effective way to back up their points and all include bibliographies as indeed one expects from a serious publication. The collection therefore addresses itself to a wide readership of anyone interested in education, and students and teachers/trainers in HE in particula