Pedagogies of Sexuality in the Late Twentieth Century: Discourses, Experiences and Subjects in the Field of Sex Education (Argentina, 1984-2003)

ZEMAITIS SANTIAGO

Liverpool

Encuentro; 10th History of Education Doctoral Summer School. Liverpool John Moores University.; 2019

Liverpool John Moores University

In this exhibition I would like to share with you some advances, concepts and sources that I have been working on for my thesis within the framework of the PhD program in Educational Sciences of the National University of La Plata.My central object of study has to do with the exploration of the different discourses, practices and diverse initiatives around the significant "Sex Education" that began in the eighties in Argentina taking as a case the province of Buenos Aires. After the last military dictatorship (which occurred between one thousand nine hundred and seventy-six and one thousand nine hundred and eighty-three, with the return of democracy, the government of Raúl Alfonsin moved forward with the first government policies and actions related to the field of sexual rights and The first significant event occurred in 1985 when the General Education Council (CGE) of the province of Buenos Aires created a "Special and interdisciplinary commission for the elaboration of a sexual education program for all schools." We can take this initiative as the beginning of a series of other governmental attempts, which, without reaching the status of obligatoriness, interposed the old idea that the formation of sexuality corresponds to family education, and not as a public matter.However, it was with the educational reforms of the 1990s driven by the governments of Carlos Menem, human sexuality entered for the first time in the official curriculum as a content of cross-curricular teaching in various school subjects such as Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities and Ethical and Citizenship Training. During these two decades, the rights linked to the field of sexuality and the reproductive life (such as access to information on sexuality, modes of prevention, contraceptive methods, provision of condoms, assistance with sexual health) began to be part of laws and regulations in several provinces to promote sex education in the respective education systems. However, due to the strong presence of religious power and the lack of initiative of the Menem government, this inclusion did not obtain the degree of obligatory nature.