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The purpose of this paper is to identify the key barriers to the delivery of school-based HIV and sexuality education in selected countries in Asia.

A review of published literature on barriers to school-based HIV and sexuality in countries in Asia was conducted, with a focus on research carried out after 1990. The paper also draws on recently undertaken national situation analyses of HIV and sexuality education conducted by the second author with support from UNESCO, as well as more general Asia-Pacific regional assessments undertaken by others.

Four key barriers to the delivery of good quality, school-based HIV and sexuality education are identified: cultural and contextual factors, policy factors, resource constraints and school-level factors.

The paper maps these four barriers as key areas in which action needs to occur in order to improve the delivery of school-based HIV and sexuality education. Potential levers for success are highlighted.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a way of offering sexuality educators and school administrators a way of thinking more broadly about how to achieve sexual health through sexuality education efforts inside and outside of the school environment.

This paper uses critical analysis of current and historical school-based sexuality education methods and curricula used in the USA. Authors use both academic journals and their own expertise/experience teaching sexuality education in the USA to analyze and critique the sources of sexuality education information and curricula used in schools.

Historically, sexuality education in school settings in the USA has been biased and has generally not offered an educational experience fostering sexual health for all students. There are now welcome signs of reform and movement toward a more inclusive and progressive approach, but there is still some way to go. Sexuality education programs in schools need to be further and fundamentally reformed to do more to foster sexual health particularly for LGBTQ individuals, students of color, and people with disabilities.

This paper offers sexuality educators ways of addressing structural issues within the sexuality education curriculum to better serve all students to increase the quality of their sexual health. Integrating critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education can increase students’ sexual health along physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions.

This paper provides historical analysis along with the identification of structural difficulties in the sexuality education curriculum and proposes both critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education as ways of addressing sex and relationships education.

This paper aims to investigate the unique issues childhood burn survivors experience in relation to sex education and sexual development.

Using a phenomenological approach, participants described their lived experiences with regards to sex education and the sexuality issues they encountered as child burn survivors. One‐to‐one semi‐structured interviews and a focus group were used to gather data, which were analyzed using a constant comparison method.

Results provide educators with better insight into the experiences of burn survivors as well as strategies for approaching sex education. Findings centered around five areas: exposure, sex education content, timing of sex education, characteristics of the educator and most appropriate methods of delivery.

Sexuality is a value‐laden topic that has the potential to increase apprehension and decrease willingness to discuss. As a result, the sample may not be wholly representative across age groups, concerns or social attitudes regarding sexuality present within this population. Additional limitations are also noted. Future studies, which utilize a mixed method approach with a larger sample of both adolescent and adult burn survivors, would increase the value and generalizability of the findings.

Research findings confirm that persons living with childhood burn injuries experience similar feelings and concerns regarding their sexuality as their able‐bodied peers which contradict social views. However, mainstream sex education falls short of addressing their unique needs and as such this study's findings provide strategies to allow for appropriate knowledge acquisition to ease the transition from childhood to adulthood.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the type and quality of sexuality education received by college students in Hangzhou, China. Their attitudes towards sex and sexuality were also explored. To set the broader context the regulations and laws governing the provision of sexuality education in China have also been examined.

A cross-sectional survey of 132 college students was conducted in Hangzhou, China in 2013. The aim was to explore their experience of and attitudes towards their sexuality education.

Most respondents lacked formal sexuality education. Neither schools nor parents were reported to be the major providers of sexuality education. The students reported that their main sources of knowledge and information relating to sex were their fellow schoolmates and the internet. Participants reported insufficient or inaccurate sexual knowledge as a key factor in their participation in unprotected sex. Attitudes towards premarital sex and cohabitation, and homosexual relationships were reported to be more open and tolerant than those of the older generation.

The data from this study suggest that reluctance amongst parents and schools to provide formal and comprehensive sexuality education has resulted in unsatisfactory sexuality education in Hangzhou. The lack of sexuality education among college students may have had an influence on their unsafe sexual behaviours which is potentially damaging to both their physical and psychological health. Implications for improving the quality of sexuality education for young people in China are discussed.

Parents are sometimes perceived as barriers to providing comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education to young people. However, little is known about parents’ actual attitudes towards providing such broad information to young people. The purpose of this paper is to examine two different approaches to measuring parents’ attitudes towards sexuality information, a programme title approach and a topic-centred approach.

Illinois parents of adolescents (n=301) indicated their knowledge about and attitudes towards sexuality education programmes and 18 sexual health topics via online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine whether parents’ attitudes were more consistent with a programme-centred (i.e. abstinence-only, comprehensive) or a topic-centred (i.e. physical health, sexual and gender identity, pleasure, and relationships) approach.

Parents were uncertain about what form of sexuality education was offered but most were equally comfortable with both abstinence-only and comprehensive programmes. Parents’ ratings of topics grouped significantly better by the topic-centred than the programme-centred approach. Parents rated all four subjects as important, with the highest mean ratings given to physical health topics. Further, parents’ ratings of importance by subject matter were largely independent of their reported programming preference. Together these findings provide evidence that parents believe it is important for their children to have access to a broad range of sexual health education information.

This study is one of the first to document parents’ support for information for young people that goes beyond being comprehensive to include topics such as identities and pleasure. In addition, parents’ lack of knowledge about sexuality education programming may obscure their support for sexual health information. Measuring support by specific topics, however, can help to overcome issues due to parents’ lack of knowledge about programming.

The purpose of this review is to critically analyse the extant research and help readers understand the ways the school-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) can contribute towards youth development and urge policymakers to implement nationwide good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE.

This literature review has been designed using the extant information available on Google Scholar, Web of Science (WoS) and PubMed.

The findings of this review inform that there is a significant need amongst the youth of the day for good-quality, scientific, culturally relevant, age-appropriate and holistic school-based CSE. Also, the findings suggest that there are significant associations between school-based CSE and youth development.

This research paper although draws from extant literature about sexuality education and its delivery across the globe, it applies the sexuality education scenario in India.

The findings of this review aim to implicate nationwide policy-level changes to implement CSE in the school curricula. There are more practical behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, which are discussed in the review.

Due to the behavioural changes that CSE could foster amongst students, it may help in the upbringing of responsible citizens who are free of health complications, who can make independent health-related decisions and look after each other in the community.

This review is an original contribution from the author. Whilst there is extant literature about CSE and youth development, this article fills the void by investigating the interdependent contributions that both the concepts can make to one another and encourages more research on this topic.

Homosexuality and bisexuality have existed since the beginning of life itself, yet such expressions have been repressed by many societies, from Plato's Greece to Shakespeare's England to America in the 1990s. Likewise, contraceptive devices have been in existence for over 3,200 years, but their availability has long been suppressed by religious groups and societies.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a work‐based, professional education series of workshops, focusing on issues of sex and sexuality training for health and social care professionals who work with adults with a moderate to severe acquired brain injury. The series of workshops were conducted by a trained psychosexual therapist and couples counsellor from Headway Brain Injury Association, and held at the Royal Hospital for Neuro‐disability in 2009 to raise health and social care professionals' awareness about sexuality issues for this patient population. A case study of the series is presented, which we hope will add to the discourse about the sexual needs of people with a moderate to severe acquired brain injury. Overall, participants were positive about the education and learning achieved within the workshop series.

Teachers are a key to success for school-based sex health education programmes; however, they may not be able to consistently implement it due to a myriad of reasons. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of teachers regarding the delivery of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in secondary schools in Fiji.

A qualitative study design was used to collect the data from SRH education teachers in Suva, Fiji between July and August 2018. This study included teachers who taught sex education for at least two years. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were run using a semi-structure questionnaire among groups stratified by gender. Data collected were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed.

The study findings reveal that implementation of SRH education is vague, not mandatory and not comprehensive. Teachers acknowledged that SRH was not adequately covered in homes and underscored its importance for young people. Teachers viewed schools as ideal place for delivering sex education, however, could not consistently implement due to a lack of adequate information and skills, feared negative parental reaction, felt uncomfortable delivering sensitive topics and in most cases felt apprehensive to discuss sexuality issues in light of lack of training and resources.

To improve SRH education delivery, there need to be a focus on strengthening capacity building of teachers through pre-service and in-service health education, improved monitoring, evaluation and context–specific resource development and allocation.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss teachers’ practices, barriers and facilitating factors associated with a regional school-based action-oriented sexuality education (SE) project with the use of information and communication technology.

This qualitative research was anchored in a constructivist paradigm, set up as a multiple case study (six schools) with exploratory aims. Observation, teacher group interview, online class-diaries and contents of the project website were used for data collection. Cross-case analysis was carried out following single case analyses.

It was found that when teachers attend in-service teacher education and training they develop professional competences to act as facilitators of students’ inquiry-based learning on action-oriented knowledge and on carrying out collective actions to promote sexual health and well-being. Collaborative and reflexive work among teachers emerged as a facilitator factor and SE integration in the school curriculum as the principal barrier.

The results of the cross-case analysis of this qualitative research based on single cases developed in their own social contexts can only be generalized with caution to other similar contexts.

Despite the limitations of this study, it has great importance for both research and practice as it contributes to the evidence regarding the implementation of the combined action of the democratic approach (participatory and action-oriented) and the use of ICT on SE.

This paper provides important information for those working on school health education projects, particularly considering how action-oriented SE is applied in different contexts.