An untimely future for youth studies?

Peter Kelly is interested in the ways in which young people are made knowable, and governable, in relation to a range of problems that emerge in the 21st century. He illustrates where some of these trends are heading in an examination of how discourses of adolescent brain development make a powerful appearance in discussions about young people's sexuality, education, use of alcohol and drugs and their mental health. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Bauman, he questions whether the future of youth studies can be 'untimely' in the sense that it asks questions that trouble or unsettle the claims of these sorts of discourses and the various ways in which young people are made known.

Performing an intervention

What does it mean to intervene, or to perform an intervention? Presumptively conflictual, the term finds meaning in its clinical and behavioural application as an enforced practice of modification: one performs an intervention on an (often) unwilling subject. Cut one way, you could tell a history of sex/ualities education as a history of interventions of this kind: efforts to interrupt and redirect affective investments, sexual practices and undesirable identifications. The sexually active young person, the homosexual, the single mother, people of colour, people with disabilities, indigenous people, promiscuous poor people – these are some of intervention’s favourite things. These are subjects constituted in part through histories of psycho-therapeutic, medical and health educational correction, histories that are still elaborating themselves through a series of familiar contemporary concerns and campaigns.

‘I felt like I was watching porn’: the reality of preparing pre-service teachers to teach about sexual pleasure

Overwhelmingly, school-based sexuality education programmes focus on the prevention of infection, pregnancy and abuse, with little if any attention given to positive views of sexuality and rarely the inclusion of sex positive issues such as pleasure, intimacy and desire. This paper explores the experience of teaching about pleasure to pre-service health and physical education teachers as part of compulsory studies in a unit on sexuality education designed to prepare them to teach sexuality education in secondary schools. Drawing on the aims, theoretical framework, content and pedagogical structure of the unit, and data collected from 42, third-year pre-service teachers (PST) in Australia via surveys and student assessment, the paper provides some practical examples of what teaching about pleasure might look like in practice. It argues that with adequate preparation, a framework to celebrate sex and sexuality, a gender lens to examine normative discourses, and the opportunity for reflection, PST can develop the confidence, skill and willingness to include pedagogies of pleasure in their school-based work.

"I'm in their shoes": Experiences of peer educators in sexuality and relationship education

Background: Sexuality and relationship education for adults with an intellectual disability has failed to include them in roles other than as learners. This paper reports findings from a study of the experiences of peer educators with an intellectual disability who co-facilitated a respectful relationships education program. Method: Qualitative data were collected about the experiences of 16 peer educators through in-depth interviews and observations of their work in delivering the program. These data were thematically analysed. Findings: Peer educators reported that peer education gave them a sense of empowerment, positioned them as credible sources of information about relationships, enabled them to help others, and gave them an opportunity to learn new knowledge about respectful relationships, community resources and supports, and new skills. Conclusions: This study presents an alternative approach to relationship education that involves people with an intellectual disability as peer educators and that benefits these people. © 2014 © 2014 Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability, Inc.

High-functioning autism and sexuality: a parental perspective

Few studies have compared sexual behaviours among adolescents with high-functioning autism (HFA) and typical populations, and indicated whether specialized education is required. We hypothesized that adolescents with HFA would (1) display poorer social behaviours; (2) engage in fewer behaviours related to privacy and have poorer knowledge regarding privacy issues; (3) have less sex education; and (4) display more inappropriate sexual behaviours; and that (5) parental concerns would be greater for the HFA sample. Parents of typical adolescents (n = 50) and adolescents with HFA (n = 23) were surveyed with a Sexual Behaviour Scale (SBS) developed by the authors, with domains corresponding to the hypotheses. The HFA and typical groups were found to be significantly different on all five domains. However, following covariation with age and level of social behaviour, it was found that only parental concerns about their child distinguished between typical adolescents and those with HFA. Specialized sex education programmes with a social interaction emphasis should be considered for this group.

Self-assessed sexuality in young adults with High-Functioning Autism

The literature has revealed that autistic persons of all ages show an interest in sexuality and relationships, but the poor social and communication skills found among those with autism hinders the experience of this. Unfortunately, most research to date in this domain has relied exclusively upon parental or caregiver reports. Thus there remains a need for research to be undertaken in this area based on direct reports from autistic individuals. We hypothesised that compared to Typically Developing (TD) persons, persons with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) would reveal lesser levels of sexual experience, lower levels of sexual and social behaviour, and less understanding of privacy on various subscales of the Sexualised Behaviour Scale. The results of this present study supported the hypothesis on all scales except Privacy and Sexualised Behaviour. Overall, compared to TD individuals, HFA individuals engaged in fewer social behaviours, had less sex education and fewer sexual experiences, had more pronounced concerns for the future, and showed similar levels of privacy knowledge and public sexualised behaviour. These findings suggest a need for specialised sex education programs for autistic populations; further, since social behaviour was significantly lower for autistic individuals and future concerns were higher, this suggests that sex education programs need to incorporate education about social rules to enhance social communication and understanding.

Erotic capital, popular pedagogy, and healthy adolescent female sexuality

The sexualization of the female body in contemporary media has created considerable anxiety about its impact on girls. Much of the resulting research focuses on the influence of visual media on body image and the flow-on effects for girls' health. Rather less attention is paid to the pedagogical role of popular romance fiction in teaching girls about their sexuality. Given the pronounced increase in eroticized fiction for girls over the past decade, this is a significant oversight. This article applies Hakim's (2010) concept of erotic capital to two chick lit novels for girls. The elements of erotic capital—assets additional to economic, cultural and social capital—are used to explore the lessons these novels teach about girl sexual subjectivities and sociality in a sexualized culture.

Re-Visioning bisexuality: rhizomatic cartographies of sex, gender and sexuality

This thesis is a sociological study of bisexuality and gender in Australian society. A theoretical frame informed by philosophers Deleuze and Guattari is deployed to analyse data from 47 interviews. It finds that the diversity of participants’ bisexual lives challenge conventional dichotomous understandings of heterosexual/homosexual, man/woman and masculine/feminine.

Erasure, exclusion by inclusion, and the absence of intersectionality: introducing bisexuality in education

Even though many schools and educational systems, from elementary to tertiary, state that they endorse antihomophobic policies, pedagogies, and programs, there appears to be an absence of education about, and affirmation of, bisexuality, and minimal specific attention to bi-phobia in curriculum, policy, and student welfare. Bisexuality continues to fall into the gap between the binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality across all educational sectors. These absences and erasures leave bisexual students, family members, and educators feeling silenced and invisibilized within school communities. Indeed, these absences and erasures have been considered a major factor in bisexual young people, family members, and educators in school communities experiencing worse mental, emotional, sexual, and social health than their homosexual or heterosexual counterparts. Also of interest is the persistence of bisexual erasure in adult-developed resources and programs, even though there is increasing evidence of sexual identities and practices in youth subcultures that are adopting shifting discursive and societal constructs of sexuality, characterized by notions of fluidity, ambisexuality, and a reluctance to label their sexuality according to the heterosexual/homosexual binary. The articles in this issue profoundly engage with and problematize the three impediments to education systems when those systems engage with sexual diversity instead of sexual duality, namely, erasure, exclusion by inclusion into gay and lesbian categories, and the absence of intersectionality (wherein other facets of identity and experience that interweave with sexuality are not taken into account, such as class, gender, Indigeneity/Aboriginality, ethnicity, geographical location, and religion). 

Queer contingencies: bifurcation and the sexuality of schooling

This article critiques the contemporary focus on same-sex attracted youth, “antihomophobia,” and “safe schools,” as well as the ways these foci structure the logics of the prevailing policy approach. The author examines how contemporary antihomophobic reform in education is sustained by a series of false dilemmas: that the political demands and  investments of straights and nonstraights can be easily distinguished one from another; that the expression of homophobia is anathema to queer educative work; and that everything that is at stake in the messy confluence of sexuality, gender, and schooling can be made sense of by figuring the problem as a matter of being safe. Gesturing toward a queer social policy for schooling, this article critiques the “zero-tolerance” approach of antihomophobia education, arguing that it falsely bifurcates the social world of the school into homophobic/antihomophobic iterations, unsafe/safe versions, and straight/homosexual interest.

Erasure, exclusion by inclusion, and the absence of intersectionality: introducing bisexuality in education

This chapter introduces and problematizes the three impediments to sexual diversity and bisexuality in education, namely, erasure, exclusion by inclusion into gay and lesbian categories, and the absence of intersectionality (wherein other facets of identity and experience that interweave with sexuality are not taken into account, such as class, gender, Indigeneity/Aboriginality, ethnicity, geographical location, and religion). It introduces each chapter as well as reflecting on where further research is needed.

Transition staff discuss sex education and support for young men and women with intellectual and developmental disability

Background Young people with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) get information, education, and support about social and sexual relationships from different sources. Staff are often involved in providing this education and support. We explored if and how this support is offered to young people transitioning to adulthood.Methods Focus groups were conducted with 17 staff from 3 transition services to illicit information about their experiences providing this education and support.Findings A key theme was that staff are “reluctant counsellors.” Although staff provided social and sexual education, they reported being underprepared and relied primarily on their own values as guidance. They did this in full recognition that transition services filled a social gap for participants, blurring the lines between education and social support.Conclusion Further research is needed to inform sexuality and relationship policy and practice during transition to adulthood, as this is a key learning and developmental time for young adults with IDD.

Mean girls, homosociality and football: an education on social and power dynamics between girls and women

Relationships between girls and women have typically been explored through the lexicon of ‘friendship’ or, where there is a presence of sexual desire, ‘lesbian’. This article suggests the complexity and impact of female (same-sex) sociality, and its relationship to heteronormativity and power dynamics between girls and women runs deeper than the terms ‘friendship’ or ‘lesbian’ give rise to. Exploring social and power dynamics amongst girls and women, this article explores how gender is policed and negotiated within a framework of homosociality. Drawing on empirical research within a women's Australian Rules football team, I explore the complexity of female same-sex bonds, the negotiation of gender embodiment and performance within female homosocial spaces, and the emergence of women's own lexicons in making sense of their relationships with other women in this particular social sphere, further considering how this might be applied to other female homosocial spaces, including same-sex educational and sporting sites.