Māori sexual wellbeing: Delivering culturally congruent sexuality education

Abstract

Maori sexual wellbeing or ‘positive sexual health’ is supported by culturally congruent sex education. Negative dominant cultural discourses about Maori and the suppression of our traditional sexual and reproductive health knowledges have constructed a barrier to applying this. A re-invigoration of Maori cultural frameworks in the teaching of sex education is timely and warranted. It also ensures that sexual and reproductive health education is pitched at a culturally relevant and congruent level that is meaningful to Maori. In this presentation I will present findings from my PhD, an Indigenous research, interview based, study (16 women, 15 men, 12 ‘key informants’) where participants discussed their experiences of being recipients or providers of sex education. Participant accounts emphasised the importance of teaching about healthy relationships, reproductive responsibility, working with tensions between dominant western discourses and tikanga discourses about sex, and delivering meaningful contraceptive education in alignment with broader tikanga values. Overall, an approach to sex education that seeks to protect rather than control whakapapa offers greater congruence for Maori, and may also offer benefits to Pakeha and adolescents from other cultures too.