Historicizing Sexualities Education

Overview & Synopsis

During the 1979 Victorian state election, fundamentalist Christian groups such as the Citizens Against Social Evil launched a public campaign against the inclusion of homosexual content in secondary school education. And, on March 19, 1979, the Minister of Education's office sent out an order to all secondary school principals directing them "to ensure that copies of books seeking to foster homosexual behaviour are not available to children". Thirty years later, and at another Victorian state election, people see a different Minister of Education campaigning on an agenda that includes an increased focus on, and support for, sexual and gender diversity in education. This historical contrast raises a number of key questions too large for full discussion, including how can one describe the history of developments in ideas about sexuality and education in Victoria? What dominant ways of knowing sexuality and education have emerged through this history? And, what have been the implications of these emergent knowledges and their attendant practices on the contemporary conjunction of sexuality and education? In order to begin exploring these large and complex questions from the perspective of a more confined set of interests, the author reflects on the disciplinary basis of the contemporary teaching of sex and sexualities in Victorian schools. In particular, he argues for an interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of sex and sexualities education which foregrounds historical curriculum content and he uses this argument as a way to speak to broader questions that are raised by the shifts in sex and sexualities education since 1979. (Contains 9 notes.)