Cutting Facts and Values Together-Apart: A Posthumanist Exploration of Swedish Sexuality Education

• In Event: From Early Childhood to Educational Researchers: Foucault and Contemporary Theory in Education

Abstract

Sexuality education is often described as based on two pillars: facts primarily about anatomy, reproduction and contraceptives, and values promoting democracy, equity and a healthy lifestyle. The aim of this paper is to explore these pillars not as uniquely different but as co-constitutive fact-values. The empirical material comes from a practice-based research study on sexuality education in Swedish secondary schools.

A posthumanist approach, more specifically Barad’s concept of cutting together-apart, guides the analysis. The result shows that different school subjects approach sexuality education from either fact- or value-based starting points that guide instruction in specific ways. However, we find that facts and values are enacted within a relational set of interdependent together-apart.

Authors

• Simon Ceder, Konstfack - University of Arts, Crafts and Design
  Presenting Author

• Karin Gunnarsson, Stockholm University
  Presenting Author