Teaching gender and sexuality in challenging times

This current moment is one which can be characterised as complex and volatile with respect to gender, sexuality and education in the UK. Interrelated controversies, challenges and politicised debates have surrounded the updated statutory guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) (2021). There is a complex web of political and media discourses at play with different histories, actors, interests and nuances. Notions of a threatening ‘gender ideology’ (referring to challenges to gender binary norms) have been circulated globally, set against a backdrop of anti-liberal positionings in relation to LGBTQ+, women’s and interrelated rights (Giraldo, 2022). This has been further amplified by far-right interests, contemporary ‘culture wars’ and ongoing backlash against social justice movements (Burke et al., 2022). Simultaneously there has been a politicised emphasis on popular ‘common-sense’ biological understandings of gender. Moreover, there are concerning signs that there is an entrenchment of a sexist gender divide, perpetuated and exacerbated through online influencers, misogynist views and behaviours affecting young men in particular. This, alongside the prevalence of gender and sexual violence and harassment in educational settings, further adds to a sense of urgency for understanding and addressing these interrelated challenges (Duffy et al, 2024; Haslop et al., 2024).

It is therefore timely to capture ways in which educators are experiencing, grappling with, making sense of and responding to this complexity in relation to gender and sexuality. The session aims to generate a sharing of perspectives, supportive discussion and potential ways forward for educators across a diverse range of settings.

Guest Speaker Dr Caroline Lloyd (Sexpression):
Immaculate Conception: Why we need to stop calling female pupils sluts

Dr Jennifer Zwarthoed, University of Portsmouth:
The (re)construction of diverse identities and relationships in RSE teaching and learning within English secondary schools

Dr Charlotte Morris and Asan Mohammed, School of Area Studies, Sociology, Politics, History and Literature
Care-full pedagogies in Gender Studies: Navigating the ‘gender wars’ in higher education spaces

Dr Matthew Round, School of Education, Languages and Linguistics
From Pedagogies of Exposure to Cultures of Conversation: Exploring Discomfort and Engagement with Relationships and Sex Education CPD in an English independent Boarding School.

This roundtable session brings together academics, educational leaders and practitioners in considering the challenges and possibilities for teaching gender and sexuality in the current UK context in a variety of educational settings.

From Pedagogies of Exposure to Cultures of Conversation: Exploring Discomfort and Engagement with Relationships and Sex Education CPD in an English independent Boarding School

Dr Matthew Round, School of Education, Languages and Linguistics

There is little available literature that considers the sociological structures which can inhibit effective continual professional development (CPD) for relationships and sex education in schools, this is of great importance in England which is currently undergoing rapid change in state-mandated relationships and sex education curricula. This paper starts to bridge that gap through an original approach by considering the resistance to relationships and sex education CPD, at a personal and institutional level, using the tools of Bourdieu to construct an understanding of the intersection of habitus, doxa, illusio and field at a school on the south coast of England. It is suggested that the common use of CPD founded on the deficit model and pedagogies of exposure are ineffective in challenging heteronormative secondary school environments. Using a focus group method to discuss the nature of relationships education CPD in the field site, this paper constructs a case study to consider what Bourdieu considered the possible within the particular, to develop an alternative to both deficit model CPD and pedagogies of exposure. To this end, it was discovered that at the field site, resistance to relationships and sex education CPD can be found within sites of symbolic violence constructed through either personal resistance (where the habitus of the teacher-as-person is at odds with the CPD), or professional resistance (where the capital value of the training is at odds with the value of capital accrued by the person-as-teacher). Both forms of resistance are expressed as forms of mediated agency which negatively impact the effectiveness of the CPD. The focus group suggested that a change in approach towards a Culture of Conversation could provide reflexive spaces in which to disrupt the heteronormative doxa of the institution as well as challenge the personal and professional resistance of the individual actors. Although this paper considers a single field site, it suggests that within the school under investigation at least, there is promise in the development of a culture of conversation as an appropriate, ethical, and effective relationships and sex education CPD strategy.