Sex Education: Representations and Norms Regarding Reproduction, Birth Control and Social Relations in French Junior High School Biology Textbooks

Marie Mengotti, Université Paris Nanterre

This communication will question a tool which plays an important role as part of sex education in French junior high schools : biology textbooks. Chapters dedicated to the transmission of human life have the distinctive feature of mixing reproductive anatomy and physiology lessons with lessons about preventative measures related to sexuality. Thus, they combine scientific knowledge with information which explicitly aims to « educate the students for responsibility » regarding sexual and reproductive health. However, they are not free from biases, stereotypes, and implicit norms with regard to bodies and social relations, showing a gap between textbook contents, curriculum goals (which include « giving access to updated scientific knowledge »; « distinguishing between facts and opinions »; and developing a « critical mind ») and democratic values (particularly equality).

We will study a corpus composed of all the textbooks that are currently used in French Junior High Schools. They were published between 2007 and 2017 by 7 different publishing houses (16 textbooks in all). We will take into account all the contents (texts and images) linked to reproduction (puberty, procreation and sexual and reproductive risks). We will seek to pinpoint the representations and norms linked to bodies (looks, pleasure, fertility, health risks) and social relations (couple, family, sex, class, and race relations). We will show that these textbooks, which are supposed to reconcile scientific neutrality, promotion of critical minds and respect of the democratic value of equality, do not convey emancipation, but rather perpetuate and legitimate various kinds of dominations : domination of male over female, heterosexuality over LGBTsexualities, white people over racialized people but also of a vision according to which sexuality is only a matter of physiology and health, over a vision in which social relations and pleasure take part in sexuality.

Presented in Session 12: Sexual and Reproductive Behaviour