This paper presents a hermeneutic reading of a 1700s account of sexuality education, allegedly delivered by Carl Linnaeus, entitled Om sättet att tillhopa gå [About the way to become together]. With a particular interest in the concepts of race and gender, this study examines how the lecture envisions the body, sexuality, and reproduction. By oscillating between the lecture and other scholarly work on Linnaeus and the history of race and gender, the interpretation of the lecture is presented through three accounts which discuss the notion of holism, the body’s capacity for transformation, and the role of pleasure in reproduction. Together, the three accounts show how historical and fictional objects, such as the lecture, can provide a starting point for science education to connect with sexuality education in a way that not only reveals “the facts” as static descriptions of the natural world, but rather engages with how the body, sexuality, and reproduction have been conceptualised differently throughout history, as well as recognise how conceptual development has been crucial for progress in science, but also for human rights and dignity.

Sexuality education (SE) takes place in fields of tension where biology, legislation, norms, and values intersect. Drawing on Ahmed's phenomenological account of whiteness, this article examines how Swedish whiteness is constructed and reproduced within SE. In Sweden, SE is formalised as an overarching, subject-integrated knowledge area where the biology subject plays a crucial role in its delivery. To include a wide spectrum of SE, where both planned and unplanned aspects of teaching are considered, as well as tensions in the content, we have analysed eight semi-structured teacher interviews and five biology textbooks. Our analysis shows how Swedish whiteness is reproduced as a form of institutionalised orientation constructed by norms, social values, people, subject knowledge, policies, and legislation, all intertwined in a complex web. This web places SE, teachers, and pupils in a racial landscape that constructs and reproduces specific forms of Swedish whiteness by assigning each a position in relation to familiarity. This familiarity provides a taken-for-granted starting point in SE, where 'here' is constructed as a place of progression, openness, and possibilities for happy future sexual lives, while other places come to stand out as hyper-visible examples of the less familiar, less happy, and 'far away'. From this outpost, teachers and biology textbooks construct and reproduce Swedish whiteness through 'happy stories' of Swedish exceptionalism. Although these positive messages in SE may stem from good intentions, our findings show that a colourblind view of racial hierarchies in the rendering of 'happy stories, about, for example, gay rights, free abortion, and equality also contributes to reproducing whiteness and reinforcing ideas about race and Swedish exceptionalism in SE.

This thesis contemplates the complexity of sexuality education in schooling by focusing on how Swedishsexuality education has come to be organised, stabilised, and able to reproduce positions of privilege andmarginalisation while it, at the same time has been seeking to disrupt and emancipate. By utilizing SaraAhmed’s concept of orientation, this thesis discusses the contribution of four stand-alone articles to explorehow the body, gender, race, and sexuality are (re)produced in Swedish sexuality education, how sexualityeducation is conditioned, and how educators can navigate sexuality education to “do right”.

Article I analyses biology education textbooks and interviews with teachers. It shows that a particularform of Swedish exceptionalism prevails within contemporary Swedish sexuality education in the shape ofhappy stories, which, on the one hand, emphasise important progression in legislation concerning sexualand reproductive rights and, on the other, reproduces exclusion by marginalising or othering anything butthe happiness of the open, inclusive, and progressive Swedishness. Article II presents a hermeneuticreading of a Linnaean lecture from the 1700s called Om sättet att tillhopa gå [About the way to becometogether]. By discussing this lecture through other scholarly work on Linnaeus and conceptualisation of thebody, gender, race and sexuality, the article discusses the body was envisioned to be a holistic vessel. Through Article I and Article II, the thesis discusses how conceptions of the body have radically changedand how this has affected both sexuality education and actions in society.

Article III discusses the tradition and pedagogic culture of talking within Swedish sexuality education byanalysing interviews and observations of municipality actors working with in-service teachers’ professionaldevelopment. It suggests that talking in sexuality education is neither natural nor neutral, for it is a culturalperformance of pedagogic tradition and ideals in which teachers can embody ideals of professionalism. Toget more insight into the embodiment of ideals, Article IV focuses on teachers’ experiences of how gender,age and sexuality has conditioned their practices in sexuality education. The article highlights how,especially older women, “tanter”, become successful as they embody a heterosexual, yet desexualised, lifecourse. In contrast, men, both young and old, are conditioned to perform safe forms of masculinity.

Together, Article III and Article IV show how teachers’ efforts to disrupt and emancipate normativenotions of gender and sexuality simultaneously can reproduce positions of privilege.

To conclude, this thesis shows sexuality education to be not only complex but unfulfilling as it reproducespositions of privilege and marginalisation, even if it is seeking to disrupt and emancipate. However, byshowing this, the thesis delivers a compelling argument for why it is necessary to continue providing anddeveloping sexuality education in school, as it is an important instrument for understanding who we are,what we know and how we are going to be uniquely diverse in a shared reproductive future.

Den har avhandlingen begrundar komplexiteten i skolans sexualundervisning genom att fokusera på hur den svenska sexualundervisningen har kommit att organisera, stabilisera och reproducera privilegium och marginaliseringar samtidigt som den har försökt att stora normer och frigöra individen. Genom att använda Sara Ahmeds begrepp orienteringar diskuterar denna avhandling bidraget från fyra fristående artiklar for att utforska hur kroppen, kon, ras och sexualitet återskapas i svensk sexualundervisning. Avhandlingen syftar också till att synliggöra hur sexualundervisning ar villkorad och vad det kan innebära for lärare "göra ratt" inom detta kunskapsområde. Artikel I analyserar biologiläroböcker och intervjuer med lärare. Den visar att en särskild form av svensk exceptionalism förmedlas genom en mängd glada berättelser som framhåller Sveriges och svenskars progressiva värderingar och lagstiftningar nar det kommer till jämställdhet samt sexuella-och reproduktiva rättigheter. Artikeln diskuterar hur de glada berättelserna i sexualundervisningen belyser viktiga framsteg, samtidigt som de återskapar uteslutning genom att marginalisera eller förminska allt som inte ar den glada, öppna, inkluderande och progressiva svenskheten. Sexualundervisning har varit obligatorisk i Sverige sedan 1955, men dess historia sträcker sig längre tillbaka i tiden. For att utforska orienteringar bakat i tiden presenterar Artikel II en hermeneutisk läsning av föreläsning som påstås vara given av Carl von Linne någon gang pa 1700-talet. Föreläsningen som kallas Om sättet att tillhopa gå diskuteras genom att lagga ett särskilt fokus pa hur kroppen, kon, ”ras”, sexualitet och reproduktion forestalls och vad det ar for kunskap som den tidens sexualundervisning kan tankas förmedla. Genom att placera Artikel I och Artikel II i relation till varandra diskuterar avhandlingen hur uppfattningar om kroppen har förändrats och hur dessa idéer om kroppar har påverkat bade sexualundervisning och handlingar i samhället. Artikel III diskuterar hur den svenska sexualundervisningen uppbar en tradition och en pedagogisk kultur av att prata. I artikeln analyseras intervjuer och observationer av kommunala aktorer som arbetar med fortbildning for lärare. Artikel diskuterar hur den pratande praktiken inom sexualundervisning varken ar naturligt eller neutralt, eftersom det blir en form av kulturellt framträdande av en ideal pedagogisk tradition. Genom att behärska pratet förkroppsligar lärare idealen om professionalism. For att fa mer insikt om hur förkroppsligande av ideal inom sexualundervisning lägger Artikel IV fokus pa hur kon, alder och sexualitet villkorar lärares undervisning. Artikeln lyfter fram hur kvinnor, och da särskilt äldre kvinnor, sa kallade "tanter", blir ett framgångsrikt pedagogiskt subjekt eftersom de förkroppsligar en heterosexuell men avsexualiserad livsbana. Man, såväl unga som gamla, ar däremot villkorade att genomföra sexualundervisning pa ett satt dar de förkroppsliga en trygg och ofarlig maskulinitet eftersom den manliga heterosexualiteten ar kodad som en aktiv sexualitet. Tillsammans visar Artikel III och Artikel IV hur lärares ansträngningar att stora och motverka normativa föreställningar om kön och sexualitet i undervisningen blir genomförbara just for att de förkroppsligar normerande privilegierade positioner. Sammanfattningsvis visar denna avhandling att sexualundervisning inte bara ar komplex utan otillfredsställande eftersom den återskapar privilegierade och marginaliserade positioner, trots dess ansats att stora normer och frigöra individen. Denna spanning utgör dock det grundläggande argument till varför det ar nödvändigt att fortsatta att tillhandahålla och utveckla sexualundervisning i skolan. För trots allt visar avhandlingen hur sexualundervisning är ett viktigt instrument for att tillgängliggöra kunskap för att kunna första vilka vi är, vad vi vet och hur vi ska kunna vara unikt olika i en gemensam reproduktiv framtid.

This paper contributes to research on in-service teachers’ professional development by exploring how pedagogical objects may facilitate an orienting of practice within sexuality education. The material analysed came from interviews and observations with teacher advisors working in four different municipalities in Sweden. These were thematically analysed and discussed using Sara Ahmed’s concepts of orientation and orientation device. Findings reveal how the professional development of in-service teachers is undertaken by teacher advisors through a process of recycling pedagogical objects. Because these pedagogical objects direct the practice of how to deliver sexuality education in school, the process of recycling contributes to maintenance of a pedagogical ideal of ‘talking’ within Swedish sexuality education, while at the same time, slowly adjusting the ‘how to talk’ so as to meet current needs. For teachers, this means that delivering a state-of-the-art or an up-to-date sexuality education, requires ongoing professional development.

Depending on where you go to school, or where you teach, you will face the topic of sexuality differently. However, regardless if you are a pupil or a teacher, there will be (or can be) a space in science education to learn more about sexuality, as reproduction is one of the core subjects (Reiss, 2018). At the same time, Gill (2016) point out that so-called controversial issues related to sexuality has impacted sexuality education negatively by limiting the professional development of teachers as well as restricted young people’s access to information and knowledge concerning sexuality. Limitations and restrictions regarding information and knowledge is especially prevalent in discourses concerning young children as some believe ‘sexuality education is irrelevant and inappropriate for children, as sexuality is viewed as “adult knowledge”’ (Robinson & Davies, 2017, p. 217). Assuring young people’s access to information is crucial for supporting sexual health (UNESCO, 2018), however sexuality education is more than preventing sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies, gender-based vulnerabilities. Advocating for comprehensive models of sexuality education which cut across, gender diversity, sexuality, and scientific knowledge is a matter of agency and accountability but also a matter of imagining a fulfilling sexual future for all genders since boys tend to associate sexuality with pleasure, while girls associate it with pain (Gill, 2016). 

Despite the “adult worlds” restrictive approach, young people are interest in learning more about bodies, health, sexuality and diversity. The eager to learn and longing to move society towards more inclusive and positive spaces is widespread among young people. For example, Wetzel and Sanchez (2024) found middle and high school students wanting more detailed and transparent information about pregnancy, STIs, and preventing these outcomes. Moreover, pupils are tired negative approach which emphasizes the risks of sex and sexuality and instead long for a positive approach with put issues of pleasure, intimacy, and desire in focus, or at least nuances the risks (such as violence in relationships) and deals with issues of gender and sexual diversity (Ollis et al., 2019). 

In creative workshops together with young people, Renold et al. (2023) found creativity and co-creation to be important aspects as well as not be too serious in sexuality education classes. Creative workshops with pupils aged 9-12 shows that crafting genitals (penises and vulvas) allow young people to interrogate stereotypical assumptions about their bodies and about gendered expectations but also showing it being acceptable to discuss sexuality (Antunes & Butler, 2023). These findings align with previous research in science education wich suggest that attempts of queering the subjects approach can ‘/…/ allow for a richer understanding of (human) sexuality and what it is to be a sexual person’ (Danielsson et al., 2023, pp. 280-281). 

Opening the space of science education and inviting queer ideas is important, however, as the subject of sexuality can bring forth provocation and discomfort (Ollis et al., 2019) is necessary to consider how science education can accommodate young people’s demands for a comprehensive and vibrant content while not stepping into ethical pitfalls of vulnerability in relation to sexuality. 

In the exploratory workshop we deal with the question of how science educators can invite students to engage with diversity and the potential of being a controversial issue without putting pupils in a vulnerable position in relation to the teaching content? 

Informed by the new materialist approaches to sexuality education (Antunes & Butler, 2023; Ollis et al., 2019; Renold et al., 2023) and affect theory and the phenomenology of objects (Ahmed, 2006; Gregg, 2010), we put a mysterious “(sex)box” in the center of attention. The purpose of the mysterious “box” it to re-imagine the role of objects and mysteries potential as a didactic tools for addressing bodily and sexual diversity in the science education classroom. 

The workshop is silly and invite giggles, laughter and blushing cheeks to engage with the seriousness of striving towards more inclusive societies. By engaging with the materials in the “sex box” we hope to produce a diverse space as the mystery of the objects in the box urge the “explorers” to imagine what sexuality is, involves and can be by finding and inventing new words to describe and re-associate sensation, experience, norms and expectations concerning sexuality. Through the “sex box” it also become possible to participate in an engaging activity without putting oneself in the limelight. While the box is a mystery for the “explorers”, the spectator is able to follow the exploration through the box’s shopping window. While the two explorers are busy building a story and figure out the object and how it relates to sexuality, the spectator can ask questions or simply follow the journey.

References 

Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology : orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press. 

Antunes, A. C., & Butler, C. (2023). Pompomed Vulvas & Glittered Penises: Exploring Gender through Play [Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative]. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 23(2), 194-202. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2022.2082397 

Danielsson, A., Avraamidou, L., & Gonsalves, A. (2023). GENDER MATTERS Building on the Past, Recognizing the Present, and Looking Toward the Future. In D. L. Z. Norman G. Lederman, Judith S. Lederman (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Science Education Volume III (pp. 263-290). Routledge. 

Gill, P. (2016). Controversial Conversations in Science: Incorporating the Science "Sex Box". American Journal of Sexuality Education, 11(1), 18-26. 

Gregg, M. (2010). The Affect Theory Reader. In (1st ed.): Duke University Press.

Ollis, D., Coll, L., & Harrison, L. (2019). Negotiating Sexuality Education with Young People: Ethical Pitfalls and Provocations. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 14(2), 186-202. https://doi.org/10.1080/15546128.2018.1548317 

Reiss, M. (2018). Reproduction and sex education. Teaching biology in schools. Global research, issues, and trends. In K. Kampourakis & M. Reiss (Eds.), Teaching biology in schools: Global research, issues, and trends (pp. 87-98). Routledge. 

Renold, E. J., Bragg, S., Gill, C., Hollis, V., Margolis, R., McGeeney, E., Milne, B., Ringrose, J., Timperley, V., & Young, H. (2023). We have to educate ourselves”: how young people are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality. London: NSPCC. https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/how-young-people-are-learning-about-relationships-sex-sexuality 

Robinson, K. H., & Davies, C. (2017). Sexuality Education in Early Childhood. In L. Allen & M. L. Rasmussen (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education (pp. 217-242). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_11 

UNESCO. (2018). International technical guidance on sexuality education. An evidence-informed approach (Revised edition ed.). the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/9789231002595 

Wetzel, G. M., & Sanchez, D. T. (2024). "What's Something You've Heard About Sex, But Are Unsure If It's True?": Assessing Middle and High School Students' Sex Education Questions. Journal of Adolescent Health, 74(2), 327-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2023.08.028 

What can a lecture on sex from the 18th century inform about contemporary sexuality education? 

One of the earliest accounts of sexuality education in formal education is provided by no less than the famous naturalist and botanist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus). In the lecture, Collegium Medicum - Om sättet att tillhopa gå [Regarding the way to come together] from the 1700s, Linnaeus allegedly provided a lively account on human sexuality. While sexual reproduction is necessary for all animals, Linnaeus distingued the human from other anthromoporfa species by the Greek motto Nosce te ipsum [know thyself] (Hoquet, 2014; Müller-Wille, 2014). Thereafter, he divided humankind into four racialized sub-groups. Over the course of 23 years and ten editions, Linneaus work and develop his classifications of man in Systema Naturae (1735-1758) and while his “races” sometimes shifted order, they remained (Linnaeus, 2023; Müller-Wille, 2014).

In this presentation I aim to address the normative force of sexuality education by engaging with Linnaeus lecture on human sexuality and reproduction and his racial account in Systema Naturae. Reading Linnaeus work in paralell with his lecture is key, for while his classifications in Systema Naturae are restrained, his lecture on sex offers vivacious explanations of the “natural” sexual constitution of the homo sapiens. To guide my readning, I ask how and what Linnaeus lecture on sexuality and human reproduction can inform about the “thyself” that the homo sapiens ought themselves to “know”?

Based on Müller-Wille (2014) epistemological understanding of “races” as mental tools, Linnaeus work and lecture are considered to be functional objects - anchoring points from which values, judgements, and consequences follows. I argue that Linnaeus sexuality education operates as a normative force as it provided a foundation for a particular biologization of the human body that naturalised distinction in both flesh and sensation. 

References

Hoquet, T. (2014). Biologization of Race and Racialization of the Human. Bernier, Buffon, Linnaeus. In N. Bancel, T. David, & D. R. D. Thomas (Eds.), The invention of race : scientific and popular representations. Routledge. 

Linnaeus, C. (2023). A General System of Nature. In G. G. Harpham (Ed.), Theories of Race. An Annotated Anthology of Essays on Race, 1684⁠–⁠1900. Geoffrey Galt Harpham. https://www.theoriesofrace.com/7 

Müller-Wille, S. (2014). Race and History: Comments from an Epistemological Point of View. Science, Technology & Human Values, 39(4), 597-606. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243913517759 

This paper illuminates how teachers are influenced by age, gender and sexuality in teaching about sex and relationships. In this analysis grounded in feminist theory, age, gender and sexuality are considered to be enacted as doings. Six interviews with teachers working with sexuality education in K-12 schools in Sweden were chosen from of a larger body of material consisting of 21 interviews with professionals engaged in school-based sexuality education. The six interviewees were selected because they explicitly addressed how teachers’ age, gender and/or sexuality come to matter in the classroom. Findings show how male and female teachers organise their teaching in relation to normative expectations of age, gender and sexuality. In sexuality education, the diverse life-courses of (hetero)sexual women offer a wide range of pedagogic possibilities for female teachers to address issues of sexuality, consent and relationships whereas male teachers are constrained to doing safe(r) forms of masculinity by directing attention away from their bodies and experiences. In understanding these results, I argue that the figure of the tant has been key in forming the pedagogic backdrop to Swedish sexuality education, hence embedding a normative ‘who’ in the ‘how’ to teach sexuality education.

The paper presents data from a larger thesis project that aims to explore how sexuality education (SE) take shape by interviewing teachers about their experiences of working with SE and observing a working group assigned to develop teachers’ practices concerning SE. In the teacher interviews I was surprised that some teachers began to talk about their own embodiments of age, gender, and sexuality to describe how they were able to teach and talk about sexuality and relationships with their students while others found it more difficult for the same reason. In this paper I ask, how do intersections of age, gender, and sexuality interfere teachers practises in teaching SE.

Using sexuality education (SE) to solve different social problems has become a defining discourse to explain what SE does. Since the late 19th century, SE has been a tool for combating and preventing social problems stemming out of venereal diseases, unintended pregnancies, low sexual moral, sexual deviance, low sexual- and reproductive health, gender inequalities, sexism, sexual exploitation, sexual violence, and a general lack of knowledge about the body and sexualities. Although SE has developed differently in various countries and taken on different directions, it continues to appear as a solution to prevent and solve a multitude of social problems. But if solving and preventing problems is the very core and purpose of sexuality education, I think it is suitable to ask how policies and educational programs ‘knows’ what problems to solve?

In response to this simple, yet important question, this paper, without denying the importance of SE, considers how the problem-solving ethos is discursively constructed and underpinned through problematisations. In this paper I use the WPR-approach to target the aftermath of policy. By departing from a policy that is already produced, I show how the Swedish Government first announced a policy reform and eight days later adjusted their message to correspond with public opinion. The empirical material consists of the announcement, a debate article by the Minister of Higher Education, and a selection of 20 newspaper articles published during the eight days in between. This paper provides an empirical example of how a problem-solving discourse underpins and narrates coherence between policy (solutions) and problems. In this paper I also consider how problematisations can work as a soothing technique of acceptance in which policy, as a solution, is in need for problems.