Sexually active young adults are at an increased risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Sexual behaviours such as inconsistent condom use, multiple partners and casual sex are known risk factors for negative sexual health outcomes. Sexually active higher education students are classified as…

While much research has documented unsatisfactory sexual and reproductive health (SRH) awareness among young people in South Africa, understanding of gender differences in access to and evaluation of SRH information is limited. This paper concerned itself with men and women's informal sources and content of SRH, and gendered divergences…

Adolescent girls and young women in urban slum areas in developing countries face a myriad of challenges regarding education, sexual health, livelihoods and gender-based violence. One way of understanding how these challenges interact with each other is through the Asset Building Framework, which posits that girls need a combination of social,…

This paper investigates the nature of the relationship between satisfaction with high school sexual health education and the pursuit of a post-secondary human sexuality course. In an initial study, first-year university students who received high school sexual health education in Ontario completed a questionnaire which assessed their satisfaction…

How well do young people understand their developing sexuality and what this means? This paper reports on findings from the Our Lives: Culture, Context and Risk project, which investigated sexual behaviour and decision-making in the context of the everyday life experience and aspirations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people (16-25 years)…

The stakes are high for sex education in South Africa: it has been estimated that 8.7% of young people live with HIV. Within primarily US and UK contexts, there has been much debate over the relative merits of abstinence-only and comprehensive sexual education programmes. These perspectives have largely been presented as irreconcilable, but…

This paper draws on findings from an analysis of interviews with young people aged 14-18 years, to explore the peer influences in young people's informal social networks which can affect their access to sexual health services. The research focuses on the social meanings of a C-Card condom distribution scheme in North East England. Such…

We examined approaches used by African-American mothers and mothers of Latino descent for informal sex-related discussions with their children to inform sexually transmitted infection (STI)/HIV intervention development efforts. We recruited mothers (of children aged 12-15) from youth service agencies and a university in southern California.…

Sexuality and humour share a fraught relationship at school, so that how humour might be productively employed in sexuality education constitutes a "risky" consideration. This paper explores the role of humour in sexuality education as observed in a Year 9 New Zealand health class. Adding to existing literature emphasising students'…

This study investigates the perspectives of service providers working with Chinese lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people in Hong Kong secondary schools and maps the relationships between same-sex sexualities, religion, education and self-harm. Sixteen service providers, including secondary school teachers, social workers based on and off…

Research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning (LGBTQ) and genderqueer (GQ) students has highlighted the links between school-based marginalisation and decreased school outcomes. This paper applies stage-environment fit theory to an investigation of school 'gender climate', the official and unofficial policing of…

In Ethiopia, as in many other countries, moral discourses about female sexuality in general, and pre- and extramarital sexual experience in particular, create an environment that discourages women from engaging in open dialogue about their sexuality and their past or future sexual experience. In the study of induced abortion among unmarried women…

A Family Life Education (FLE) curriculum was introduced in Fiji schools in 2010 in response to concern about increasing teenage pregnancies and young people's vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections and other health and social problems. However, conservative and suspicious parental attitudes towards FLE have been an obstacle. The…

This paper analyses data from a focus group conducted with a group of female pupils aged 13-14 to re-examine the assumption that pupils' negative assessments of sex and relationship education (SRE) should be understood only as a reflection of inadequate teaching. Focusing on the emotional aspects of their accounts, and the inconsistencies in…

This paper describes the sexual socialisation process of marginalised, drug-using heterosexual black men, focusing primarily on the sources and content of sexual information. Analysing qualitative interview data, we discovered that the men in our sample both learn about sex and become sexually active at an early age. They most often learn about…