Denying the sexual subject: schools, regulation of student sexuality

Abstract

This article examines some of the discourses and practices through which schools produce and regulate student sexual identities. It suggests that schools’ ‘official culture’ can be seen as a discursive strategy which identifies a preferred student subject that is ‘non-sexual’. This preference is communicated through the contradictory nature of discourses and practices which constitute ‘official school culture’ around student sexuality. These discourses work to simultaneously acknowledge student sexuality and position young people as ‘childlike’. Through the tension created by these contradictory positionings, schools can be seen to undermine the kind of sexual agency that young people might access to support their sexual well-being. It is concluded that schools’ deployment of discourses around sexuality produces student sexual positionings that may in fact dilute sexuality education’s ‘effectiveness’ (in terms of the production of sexually responsible citizens).