Health + Equality + School Engagement: Scenarios USA Reinvents Sex Education

Abstract

This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité highlights the experience of Scenarios USA,3 an innovative nonprofit program that has integrated a gender and rights perspective -- and a critical thinking approach -- into curricula, while fostering new pedagogies and greater awareness among teachers. Scenarios USA approaches sexual health not as a stand-alone issue but as intertwined with young people's overall lives and agency. As such, the organization's "sex ed" work is part of a broader strategy of fostering self-expression, leadership, and advocacy among youth, especially among those living in marginalized communities.Instead of teaching adolescents about contraceptive methods, Scenarios has them thinking and writing about gender norms, power dynamics, and intimate relationships in their own lives