Background: Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) is increasingly gaining traction within the international community. CSE is regarded as an important means of informing young people about their rights and sexual health, improving public health outcomes and contributing to sustainable development. Context and objective: Considerable variation exists in understandings regarding what makes sexuality education ‘comprehensive’. To gain greater clarity on what CSE is seen to be and entails, and how this form of sexuality education compares with other approaches, a review of existing programmatic and scholarly literatures was conducted. Design: This literature review analyses a range of CSE guidelines and academic sources engaging with the subject of CSE, and sexuality education more broadly. Method: Analysis of stated goals and means of CSE to identify core components of this form of education. Results: Four sets of core CSE components are identified, yet the analysis shows that the intended breadth of this type of sexuality education leaves considerable space for interpretation, with key concepts often remaining abstract. Furthermore, addressing the core elements of CSE and achieving its ‘emancipatory’ goals can work to exclude particular perspectives and subjectivities. Conclusion: The review draws attention to the politics of knowledge production at play in decisions concerning what is deemed ‘comprehensive’, for whom, when and where. It concludes that the notion of ‘comprehensive’ is a matter of degree, and that reaching consensus on a set of universal standards regarding what can be deemed as ‘comprehensive’ may neither be possible nor desirable. The analysis will be useful for those interested in more careful engagement with CSE and, specifically, in examining features that, in practice, may run counter to the original goals.

Sexual violence is recognised as a public health and human rights problem worldwide. Although schools are expected to be safe places for young people and are envisaged as institutions that challenge social injustices, they are increasingly identified as sites where disproportionately high levels of sexual violence occurs. This study seeks to understand how sexual violence in schooling contexts is conceptualised and interrogated by teachers with a focus on lived experiences, the consequences and the underlying causes. The study is based on qualitative research conducted at a secondary school in Ethiopia. The findings point to overwhelming evidence that sexual violence pervades in secondary schools, with a wide range of adverse consequences on girls' wellbeing and educational attainment. The study demonstrates how nature, culture and society are included in conceptual thinking about the causes of sexual violence and explores teachers' agency in addressing the phenomenon.

The effectiveness of education programmes, including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), to address gender-based violence in schools is under increasing scrutiny. Explanations for the persisting challenges with these programmes have so far typically pointed towards 'culture'. Drawing on a qualitative case study in Ethiopia, this paper analyses the relations between gender-based violence and culture, as it is presented in CSE. It reveals that uncritical conceptions of tradition and modernity, as well as 'good' and 'bad' cultures in CSE, fail to address and discuss gender relations and patriarchy as the root causes of gender-based violence. This enhances the vulnerability of young women and the reduces the effectiveness of CSE in addressing gender-based violence. IntroductionTensions that arise with promoting educational initiatives and conducting research on sexuality in developing contexts are being increasingly reported. On the one hand development and modernisation are celebrated by young people as inspiring an ideal of free and liberal sexual practices; yet at the same time they are viewed to be at odds with a traditional cultural identity (Leclerc-Madlala, 2004;Parkes et al., 2016;Lalor, 2004;Spronk, 2009). For instance, Lalor (2004) argues that in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a widespread (though contested) belief that modernisation has led to a dramatic increase in child sexual abuse; and Leclerc-Madlala ( 2004) reveals how ideals of modernity and cosmopolitanism are believed to lead to transactional sex in South Africa. Spronk ( 2009) also describes that sexuality is centrally placed in the positioning of young urban professionals in Nairobi, as modern subjects. However, for these young professionals, 'proper morality' remains important to their modern sexual identities and is strongly connected to cultural heritage and notions of 'Africanness'. It is without doubt that development efforts, including educational programmes for the promotion of sexual health, affect notions of culture, modernity, and tradition, as well as what is considered to be 'proper' (see e.g.

View related articlesView Crossmark data Citing articles: 4 View citing articles 'Sexual violence is not good for our country's development'. Students' interpretations of sexual violence in a secondary school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia