Sexual education for teenagers and young people: mapping official prepositions

Abstract

This work is about the mapping and the proposed official discussions concerning sexual education for teenagers and young people, provided by documents from federal and São Paulo state governments. The published documents between 1990 and 2010 were searched and analyzed. After specific criteria were defined, 25 documents were gathered; 76% of them did not use sexual education or sexual orientation, but used mainly the word prevention. 60% of the official documents used the term sexual orientation as synonym of sexual diversity. Most of the proposals (56%) came from Ministry of Health, indicating, nevertheless, inter sectorial actions with education in most of them. It is concluded that there is a predominance of proposals coming from the organs of health area, even if the school is cited as prime location for actions. Although some documents move forward in their formulations, in order to promote the knowledge and the autonomous reflection on this theme, others leave space for the permanence of repressive practices.