Sexuality Education: A battleground of ideologies in Panama

• In Event: Policies for gender justice in education across different geographies: The role of feminist actors in countering the 'gender ideology' fallacy

Proposal

In the last couple of years, there have been a series of attempts to include the teaching of sexuality education in Panama. Each time, efforts to establish a policy on comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) have generated debate and faced strong opposition from religious and pro-family groups, whose crusades have successfully prevented the approval and acceptance of CSE in Panama. In turn, the proposal of abstinence-focused sexuality education has received similar backlash from civil society organizations (CSOs), human rights and feminist activists, thus creating a rift between proponents of CSE and proponents of abstinence programmes (Prior-Grosch, 2016). By recognising this non-stop cycle of debates and struggles, this research aims to understand the narratives of such groups and their influence on public opinion. Although there is extensive research on the opinion of the public around sexuality education and the polarizing debate, to the best of my knowledge, no other studies are focusing on the influence of narratives on sexuality education in the opinion of the public. By using the lenses of symbolic interactionism and the narrative policy framework, this work represents an innovative addition to the growing literature on sexuality education and narrative policy analysis.
This research follows a mixed-methods methodology composed by explorative interviews with key actors, including policymakers, religious leaders and activists, document analysis, and a survey. Results demonstrate that both opposing and supporters of CSE rely on protecting human integrity and ensuring the wellbeing of children, youth, and families, showing similar values around the narratives. Nevertheless, when it comes to content and rights-holders’ autonomy, profound discrepancies arise among groups, creating a polarizing debate. To measure and evaluate how these narratives can affect public perception against or in favor of sexual education policies, I conducted a survey with university students. After a series of demographic questions, students were subjected to a narrative treatment, in which randomly, respondents were shown a video with the narrative of a person supportive of CSE or a video showing a person with an abstinence-based narrative. By calculating the mean difference among groups, findings imply that people subjected to CSE narratives changed their opinion and are keen to support the teaching of CSE. In contrast, those exposed to an abstinence-based video are polarized while some agreed with abstinence-based teachings, while others rejected this narrative and called for the teaching of CSE.
This research makes noticeable the need for improved understanding between Panamanian political actors and a deeper comprehension of what CSE entails. Because of how sexuality education is approached, this work illustrates how the country faces several problems that affect the realization of human rights, which CSE can tackle. Based on this reflection, I finish this research by 1) bestowing insights on why CSE should be implemented in Panama and 2) proposing policy recommendations for enhancing the Panamanian sexuality education teachings.

Author

• Ana Raquel Fuentes Córdoba