The taboo of sex education: genesis and perpetuation of prejudice in childhood

Abstract

For two decades, “sexual orientation” was a transversal theme in the Brazilian school curriculum. Nevertheless, despite the proliferation of research on this topic, there are few studies that map the current role of social contexts (family, school, media, etc.) to consider the psychogenesis of sexual knowledge. In this light, this article discusses the conditions of the production of sexist prejudices at the interface between socio-cultural aspects and conceptual operators of the psychology of child development. Having found that the analysis of parents and teachers’ representations is predominant in the literature, we chose to listen to the children themselves. The study sought to determine whether representations about gender identity that were detected in empirical studies from the 1960s and 1980s in the United States and France are also observed in the current Brazilian context. To do so, 80 children, from 4 to 9 years old were interviewed apropos their ideas concerning sexual and gender difference. The results allowed partially observing some traits identified in the studies examined, and a movement can be inferred that represents a progression from gender stereotypes to the consideration of sexual anatomy. In comparison to the role of the family as a sex educator, the school was little mentioned as a transmitter of knowledge, which demonstrates the need to investigate the impacts of the circulation of the said and unsaid about sexuality in this institution. The conclusion emphasizes the fruitfulness of the dialectical analysis of social and cognitive aspects of development in the study of sexual prejudices in childhood.