The Babies Born Better international project aimed at surveying women’s experience in childbirth, privileging the qualitative description of this experience. It was translated into several languages and, in each country, there were different strategies for data analysis. However, analysing a qualitative dataset of this dimension, without completely transforming qualitative into quantitative data, poses practical challenges to researchers. Thus, in this article, we aim to explore the potential of using a qualitative data analysis software to avoid homogenising women’s experiences and preserve the subjectivity of responses in the analysis of open-ended questions of the B3 survey. We focused on the Portuguese version of the survey, reporting a thematic, computer assisted qualitative data analysis of 1348 responses. The software acted as a mediator of the researchers’ analysis and interpretation, beyond classical content analysis, without converting qualitative into quantitative data through plain word count. Exploring new possibilities of interpreting not only the meaning, but the relations between categories, may expand the scope of qualitative data analysis. However, we argue that the use of a software should not be overvalued, as such strategy should always remain as subsidiary to the researcher’s subjective interpretation of data.

The purpose of this study is to report on the validation process of a questionnaire that explores health science students’ attitudes towards women’s childbirth experiences. This questionnaire can help inform education programs to enhance the quality of woman-professional interactions, and to improve women’s experiences of childbirth. A standardized procedure for the development and validation of the questionnaire included: item development and psychometric pre-validation, Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient calculation, test–retest and item-total correlation for the reliability analysis. Content validity was undertaken by Delphi method with sixteen panelists over two rounds. We determined the factor structure and refined and validated the questionnaire according to the responses of a cohort of 560 students using principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation. Confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken. A 52-items questionnaire CAVE-st: (acronym for cuestionario de actitudes sobre vivencias y experiencias en el parto) was developed and validated. The results of the factor analysis finally revealed four latent dimensions. The questionnaire CAVE-st is a valid and reliable tool to assess health science students’ attitude towards women’s childbirth experiences. Further work to translate and adapt the instrument in other cultures and languages will be undertaken.

Resumo: Este artigo resulta de um exercício de revisão de literatura feito no âmbito de uma pesquisa de doutoramento em Sociologia, cujo objetivo central consistiu na identificação de mudanças e continuidades nas formas de viver e representar a sexualidade, nas últimas décadas, em Portugal. Em concreto, procurámos com este artigo explorar duas vias fundamentais de conceptualização da sexualidade: primeiro, a sexualidade enquanto campo legítimo do saber científico e, depois, a sexualidade enquanto objeto da Sociologia em particular. Deste exercício resulta a ideia de que, enquanto dimensão da vida social, a sexualidade é um reflexo de mudanças sociais mais abrangentes, sendo, nas sociedades contemporâneas, palco de importantes conquistas identitárias e lugar de excelência para uma nova ordem de individualização e prazer.

Assuming that young people have more tolerant and individualistic standards than the previous generations, this paper uses excerpts from biographical interviews applied to boys and girls to question the limits of the sexual liberalization ideology. To do that, the analysis focuses on two key dimensions of the discourses on changes in sexuality: the gender equality and the acceptance of sexual diversity. Without denying the growing flexibility of affective and sexual norms and trajectories, we seek to show that the experience of sexuality reflects a movement towards the liberalization of the conducts only in the prescribed limits, being such constraints attached to the gender differences and to the heteronormativity.