Teachers navigating the sociocultural challenges of teaching sexuality education to South African learners

Abstract

Objective:

Globally, South Africa has the highest rate of HIV infection, nevertheless, society and communities seem hesitant to entrust teachers with the responsibility to teach their children about sexuality issues. This study examined how Further Education and Training Life Orientation teachers navigate the sociocultural complexities of teaching sexuality education.

Design:

A qualitative, narrative study was conducted. Data were generated using narrative frames, collages, and lesson observations.

Setting:

Six Life Orientation teachers from six schools in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa participated.

Results:

Life Orientation teachers faced a range of sociocultural challenges when teaching sexuality education. The following strategies were used to mitigate these challenges: avoiding teaching about contradicting cultural and religious beliefs; using social media platforms; involving specialists, peer educators and role models; and adopting pastoral and parental roles.

Conclusion:

Collaborative opportunities between Life Orientation teachers, specialists, role models and community members or organisations could offer a supportive role and influence the teaching of sexuality education positively. Social media platforms and innovative teaching strategies could enhance the quality and teaching of sexuality education.

Keywords

HIV and AIDS narrative sexuality education sociocultural challenges teachers

Introduction

This paper draws on a qualitative, narrative study conducted with Life Orientation (LO) teachers in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It aims to explore the sociocultural challenges such teachers experience when teaching sexuality education and how they address these challenges. UNESCO (2018: 12) emphasises how comprehensive sexuality education ‘enables children and young people to develop accurate and age-appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills; positive values, including respect for human rights, gender equality and diversity; and, attitudes and skills that contribute to safe, healthy, positive relationships’. Similarly, the European Expert Group on Sexuality Education (2016: 427) highlights that the aim of sexuality education is ‘to develop and strengthen the ability of children and young people to make conscious, satisfying, healthy and respectful choices regarding relationships, sexuality and emotional and physical health’.

In South Africa, sexuality education is taught through the subject LO which discusses concepts such as adolescence, the differences between male and female reproductive organs, sexual behaviour and diseases, and gender inequalities that may lead to sexual abuse and the transmission of HIV (Department of Education (DoE), 2010]. Therefore, schools and especially LO teachers, are tasked with the crucial role of providing sexuality education (Muza and Naidoo, 2024; Beyers, 2011; Ngabaza and Shefer, 2019; Tucker et al., 2017; Wood and Pillay, 2016).

Globally, and in South Africa, the focus of sexuality education has shifted over the years in response to educational and public health priorities. However, the key issues remain the same. In the 1960s–1970s, the focus was on preventing unintended pregnancy, which shifted in the 1980s to the prevention of HIV. In the 1990s, the focus was on sexual abuse awareness, which shifted to the prevention of sexism, homophobia, and online bullying from 2000 onwards. The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA, 2010: 15) outlines this fundamental principle that underpins sexuality education: “Recognize sexuality education as a right and use sexuality education to promote equity and human rights”. Therefore, UNFPA recommends that sexuality education should advance gender equality, enhance sexual and reproductive health, and promote human rights.

Internationally, many countries have adopted school-based programmes as one of the most promising means to teach sexuality education and address challenges of unintended pregnancy, HIV infection, sexual abuse, gender-based violence, and gender inequality (Leung et al., 2019; Ngabaza and Shefer, 2019; Vanwesenbeeck, 2020; Yohanna et al., 2023). Research has emphasised the success of school-based or collaborative approaches to sexuality education in Nigeria (Yohanna et al., 2023), the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Taiwan (Leung et al., 2019), the Netherlands (Vanwesenbeeck, 2020) and across Europe (European Expert Group on Sexuality Education, 2016). However, research suggests that the success of school-based sexuality education in South Africa is moderate at best (Beyers, 2011; Muza and Naidoo, 2024; Ngabaza and Shefer, 2019; Tucker et al., 2017), a view confirmed by UNAIDS (2023) and the Statistics South Africa (2021) Reports.

UNAIDS (2023) reports that around 20.8 million people in eastern and southern Africa were living with HIV in 2022. In 2022, there were 500,000 new HIV infections, with 58,000 of these new HIV infections being in children (0–14 years). In eastern and southern Africa, women and girls (all ages) remain among the most vulnerable and accounted for 63% of all new HIV infections, with 3,100 adolescent girls and young women (15–24 years) being infected with HIV every week (UNAIDS, 2023). These are alarming statistics given that sexuality education has been incorporated into the LO curriculum of school-based HIV prevention programmes. Statistics South Africa (2021) also reported that in 2020, 33,899 births occurred to teenage mothers (17 years and younger) while 499 girls between the ages of 10 and 13 years of age gave birth. Barron et al. (2022: 252) analysed public sector data between 2017 and 2021, finding that ‘the number of births to young teenagers aged 10–14 years increased by 48.7% (from a baseline of 2,726). In adolescent girls aged 15–19 years, the number of births increased by 17.9% (from a baseline of 114,329)’. The authors argue that the large increases between 2020 and 2022 were at least in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted school and health services.

We concur that the major upheavals in education and health ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, together with political conflict and natural disasters, such as the flooding in KwaZulu-Natal province, have compromised education and health and fuelled existing social and gender inequalities. But there remain underlying issues that require attention. Central among them are questions of culture and community, the role of sexuality education in South Africa, and the contribution it might make to alleviating the problems identified above and promoting young people’s sexual health.

This paper focuses on LO teachers and the teaching of sexuality education. It addresses the question: how do LO teachers address sociocultural complexities in teaching sexuality education? Research from the perspective of LO teachers, the kingpins of sexuality education in South Africa, holds the potential to offer insights relevant to the design and enhancement of school-based sexuality education programmes. In this article, we analyse the sociocultural challenges LO teachers face when teaching sexuality education and how they go about addressing these challenges.

We begin by examining the role of schools and teachers in sexuality education. Sociocultural issues in the context of HIV are theorised, drawing on Griswold’s and Helleve et al.’s cultural diamond models. We find that in the context of sexuality education, LO teachers mitigate sociocultural challenges by avoiding teaching about (and possibly contradicting) cultural and religious beliefs; using social media platforms; involving specialists, peer educators, and role models; and adopting pastoral and parental roles. Insight into the future teaching of sexuality education, the redesign of policy and curricula, and the role of Education Departments in enhancing the knowledge and skills of LO teachers are shared.

Schools, teachers, and sexuality education

While research in the international and African context acknowledges the significant role of schools and teachers in sexuality education (Muza and Naidoo, 2024; Ngabaza and Shefer, 2019; Vanwesenbeeck, 2020; Yohanna et al., 2023; Tucker et al., 2017; Nkani and Bhana, 2016; Wood and Pillay, 2016), the challenges and barriers to successfully delivering sexuality education cannot be overlooked (Beyers, 2011; Browes, 2015; Cornell and Elliott, 2009; Eisenberg et al., 2013; Tucker et al., 2017). These barriers include: lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, and ineffective monitoring and evaluation (Tucker et al., 2017); gender inequalities and taboos (Browes, 2015) structural barriers in the form of parents’, students,’ and/or administrators’ responses, and restrictive policies (Eisenberg et al., 2013); contrasting values and moral beliefs (Beyers, 2011); and ‘implicit and explicit messages that reinforce a hegemonic sexuality that is rooted in and bolsters inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality’ (Cornell and Elliott, 2009: 83). In addition, Goldfarb and Lieberman (2021) have highlighted how teachers face challenges rooted in the sociocultural beliefs and practices of the communities they work in. For LO teachers in South Africa, these include restrictive school guidelines, cultures of silence, personal experiences, cultural taboos, and language barriers (Muza and Naidoo, 2024).

Theorising sociocultural issues in the context of HIV

Griswold’s (1987, 2013) cultural diamond model allows for understanding culture and how it shapes society. In the model, all cultural objects are described as having creators and receivers; however, the actions of receivers are influenced by the context. Griswold (2008, 2013) suggests that a cultural object has the potential to narrate a story. In the teaching of sexuality education, teachers may be viewed as distributors, and learners as consumers, with the cultural object being the LO curriculum. Helleve et al. (2009) adapted Griswold’s cultural diamond model and linked it to LO teachers teaching about HIV and AIDS as part of sexuality education from a sociocultural perspective. Their study examined teachers’ responses to perceived cultural differences between local society and the LO content in HIV and AIDS and sexuality education.

This study draws on Griswold’s cultural diamond model and the model for LO teachers adapted by Helleve et al. to re-visit and analyse sociocultural complexities in the teaching of sexuality education. The cultural diamond model suggests that all cultural objects have creators and receivers; however, context significantly influences how the cultural objects are received. LO teachers may be viewed as the creators of HIV-related messages, however, due to sociocultural factors they may fail to meet the needs of the recipients (learners), who therefore fail to understand the cultural object (HIV education) that is taught. Ideally, there should be reciprocity between the context and the cultural object in order for good quality and useful sexuality education to take place.

Methods

This paper reports on the findings from a doctoral study conducted by the second author. A qualitative narrative approach was used to generate rich data about how LO teachers addressed sociocultural issues in their teaching of sexuality education. Data were generated through narrative frames, collages, and lesson observations. Narrative frames provide an outline to guide and support narrative writing undertaken by participants (Barkhuizen, 2014). In this study, LO teachers were provided with the opportunity to write about themselves and their work: in particular, how their socio-cultural backgrounds, their upbringing, and sexual experiences had influenced their views about sexuality education and how they mitigated sociocultural challenges encountered in their teaching. Participants were also asked to design collages and to artistically express themselves through words or phrases, drawings or pictures cut out from magazines or newspapers. In particular, participants were asked to express their views about sexuality education and factors that created a challenge for their work. Through collages, participants were invited to make sense of their lived experiences visually and articulate their innermost thoughts about the challenges and difficulties they faced when teaching about sexuality education.

The second author observed one lesson taught by each participant, which focused on sexuality education in the LO curriculum. The topics taught discussed methods of HIV transmission; the impact of HIV on the community; risk behaviours that spread HIV; teenage pregnancy and HIV; HIV prevention; and masculinity, femininity and HIV. The second author also recorded field notes of key issues during the lesson observations.

The research was conducted in uMgungundlovu, one of the largest districts in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, and the epicentre of the HIV epidemic. Six secondary schools located in three different contexts were selected and LO teachers from them participated in the study: two schools were located in a rural area, two in a township, and two in an urban area. Purposive sampling was used to select six teachers who had been teaching LO for at least 3 years and came from diverse backgrounds. The following pseudonyms were used for the participants: Tapiwa, Phindiwe, James, Johnson, Noxolo, and Felicia.

The University of KwaZulu-Natal provided ethical approval for the study. The KwaZulu-Natal DoE granted permission to conduct the study. Informed consent was obtained from school principals and participants. Participation was voluntary, pseudonyms are used to ensure anonymity and confidentiality. Thematic data analysis was used to develop the themes described below.

Results

Four themes were developed from the thematic analysis: avoiding teaching that might contradict cultural and religious beliefs; using social media platforms, involving specialists, peer educators, and role models and adopting pastoral and parental roles.

Avoiding contradicting cultural and religious beliefs

Participants explained that they avoided teaching topics that contradicted their personal, cultural, and religious beliefs. Some topics made them uncomfortable, and they therefore avoided discussing sensitive issues concerning sexuality, HIV, and AIDS that ran contrary to their personal, cultural, and religious beliefs as well as the beliefs prevalent in the local community.

Noxolo expressed this as follows:

I always want to do justice to the learners, I cannot keep quiet and let them suffer, so I teach sexuality and HIV and AIDS as it is, but I replace certain words I cannot express in front of learners. Instead of using ‘sexual intercourse’, I say people are sleeping together, and they know what I mean.

It was also evident during the observation of Noxolo’s LO lesson, that instead of ‘vaginal fluid’ she said ‘flowing water’ and instead of ‘sperm’ she said ‘male seeds’. This suggests that in local culture, it is considered taboo for teachers to discuss sexual issues explicitly with learners. This has serious consequences for teachers not following the guidelines in the LO curriculum and sexuality education, and for students who may end up confused by what is said. Similarly, Felicia said that she could not use words that made learners unhappy and depressed. As a mother, she said she was touched emotionally by how her words could affect them. In her narrative frame, she said:

You cannot stand there and talk about infected people [because] there are learners in front of you who you suspect to be infected or whose parents have died of AIDS complications. They will feel bad, so I skirt around such issues because I would not like to depress them.

In her lesson observation, it was evident that Felicia liked her learners to be happy and the lesson to be lively, with most learners participating. Tapiwa also mentioned that he avoided certain issues about sexuality. He said:

It is like a war with the community, and they were disadvantaged by the apartheid government, which destroyed and undermined their socio-cultural practices. Now they want them back, and they are suspicious of teachers. To them, independence means taking back their pride. We cannot win the war without support, so we must remain silent.

James acknowledged that working in an environment that contradicted his religion or his culture was problematic. He added:

The best solution is to ignore those areas I feel uncomfortable teaching. In this way, my relationship with the community will be sustainable, and I will continue helping the learners without fear.

Using social media platforms

Participants described using teaching aids such as videos, flashcards, and charts, as well as social media platforms to teach about sexuality education and HIV and AIDS. Several participants described having created social groups on WhatsApp and Facebook to improve their teaching about sexuality education, especially about HIV, which was a sensitive issue. Felicia explained:

They come to our rescue where we cannot navigate due to cultural problems. In these platforms, different messages are spread, which are helpful to our learners. You are not scared or think, what I will say about this and that. Everything is at their disposal.

However, in her narrative frame, Phindiwe described how the success of using a social media platform depended on the class you were teaching. While some learners were interested in using social media platforms, others were not.

As I said, there is a media culture where we learn many good or bad things. The use of videos and print media that express specific stories and sexual language teachers cannot express directly to their learners due to religious and cultural complexities is of much value.

Similarly, Noxolo mentioned that the current generation of learners enjoys social media platforms since they use them to chat with friends and relatives.

Pictures, videos, diagrams, and graphs are essential to understand better. Learners can see charts showing the number of people infected and dying. . . They did not believe this, and I shared activities done in KZN on our Facebook group, which led to high numbers of infections. It was like, ‘now we see the problem’. They enjoy this practice. I have observed that most of them, including girls, participate, ask questions, and give [more] solutions and suggestions than they do in class.

Involving specialists, peer educators, and role models

Participants also suggested that involving health personnel and role models from the communities they were teaching in improved learners’ understanding of sexuality, HIV, and AIDS. Except for Johnson, participants believed that teachers were not specialists when dealing with the sociocultural challenges related to sexuality and HIV because of the stigma and discrimination associated with these topics. They therefore sought help from health workers. Felicia explained:

Health workers are specialists in dealing with diseases like HIV and AIDS and can express themselves freely to the learners on behalf of the teachers. Our school is near the clinic, and [so] I often call the nurses to conduct some of my lessons involving sexuality education.

Phindiwe shared pictures of a class taught by teachers from different races in her collage. She explained that South Africa is a rainbow nation, and learners should have the privilege of being taught by teachers who are racially different to themselves. Phindiwe concurred that specialists can give learners a sense of urgency and seriousness when dealing with HIV and AIDS. She shared:

It is exciting to them, makes them understand better and as teachers, we are helped a lot in dealing with sensitive areas [which] we cannot explain. Someone has to explain it to you. In the end, the winner is the learner.

James echoed these sentiments concerning external support. He acknowledged that specialists and role models have an important role to play in HIV and AIDS education. He felt that specialists and/or outsiders could help learners and encourage them to change their behaviour.

The whole idea is about helping and equipping learners with survival skills. It does not matter who has come to teach them. Other people may be affected or feel shy to talk sex language. Some of us have communities that are sensitive to HIV and AIDS education.

This idea resonated with Felicia, who advocated for the inclusion of peer educators in teaching about sexuality and HIV and AIDS:

Peer educators are like what a mother is like to her baby; she knows when the child is sick and quickly seek the correct remedy without delay. Peer educators have nothing to worry about, and they do not have a problem with societal issues we are very concerned about.

Noxolo explained that she had invited pastors to talk with the learners. She said:

Our school uses local pastors who often come during assembly or preach to boys and girls separately.

Tapiwa said that retired health workers could be a blessing in the community as role models or specialists who could teach about health issues such as HIV and AIDS. In contrast, Johnson said he believed that he should teach HIV and AIDS education, as he did not want to burden any other person with the task since he was aware of the challenges associated with this topic. He said:

We, as teachers, are trained to teach, primarily drawing from our own experiences. It is challenging to assign outsiders duties of teaching HIV and AIDS education. These people need training, and in the end, the burden is shifted to me.

Johnson’s response shows that he was prepared to teach sexuality education about HIV without involving specialists and role models. Johnson mentions that teachers are expected to draw upon own experiences. However, it is important that teachers’ personal biases do not influence their teaching, especially of sensitive issues in sexuality education.

Adopting pastoral and parental roles

Participants suggested that teachers sometimes needed to adopt a pastoral and parental role and be willing to help solve problems irrespective of people’s gender or status. They argued that these pastoral and parental roles were lifelong functions one had to commit to because sometimes the results were not immediate or were not achieved at all. Noxolo explained that teachers needed to understand the problems that learners were facing. She suggested that one way of doing this was for teachers to visit the homes of learners and observe the type of life they were leading to establish an informed perspective. She shared that she had recently seen the home of one of the learners who was in receipt of antiretroviral treatment for HIV, and who looked weak and malnourished. She observed that this learner did not participate in class and often left work unfinished. After her home visit, she said:

Everything there is upside down. There is no food, yet she should eat and take her medication. She is staying with a grandmother who did not recognise me because she was intoxicated with beer. There is no support and parental care for this child. What is needed are prayers and a good heart from teachers to compensate for the lost and missing parental love.

Phindiwe agreed that if teachers want to understand their learners’ behaviour better and find answers to the problems they encounter in the classroom, they must look beyond the walls of the classroom and pay attention to their learners’ home backgrounds. By doing so, they may discover that learners are raised in ways that contradict classroom ethics or live in inhumane conditions that undermine their dignity.

During Noxolo’s lesson observation, it was evident that she smiled and showed motherly gestures towards a learner, indicating that she cared for her. Noxolo said a smile meant a lot to this learner because she did not receive any smiles at home. She said she liked to hug and embrace the child, but because of COVID-19 regulations, she could not do that anymore. She commented:

I [feel I] connect with her spiritually and create this bond when I hug her.

She said that, at first, this girl used to cry when you asked her questions:

It used to disturb me, but when I discovered the source of the problem, I sorted it out with love.

Tapiwa also acknowledged that:

Adopting the role of a parent will help overcome other inhibiting factors and help the teacher gain trust from learners who might be affected and infected by HIV and AIDS.

In his collage, Tapiwa sketched parents attending church with the children following them. He said parents or teachers have to earn their children’s trust if they want the children to follow their instructions with minimal resistance. He added that children follow in the footsteps of their parents and leaders in society so far as the implementation of cultural practices is concerned. In his narrative frame, Tapiwa explained that:

Sometimes emotions make it difficult to talk with them, you imagine their situation, and I fail to speak with them. The best solution is to choose a mother figure from the community who can talk, show love and guide them to a happy life. I have done it two or three times, and it works.

Felicia also believed that teachers should assume the role of a parent to overcome the challenges they encounter in the classroom. She had this to say:

Teaching HIV and AIDS wholeheartedly is a mammoth task associated with all challenges. However, we must go beyond our duty and assume the pastoral and parental role when dealing with sexuality and HIV and AIDS issues.

Phindiwe concurred:

In the end, you know that I am dealing with learners. Others have never experienced the love of parents who died while some were very young. They need mothers’ love, and you have to go out of your way and embrace them. Otherwise, they will feel rejected.

Tapiwa acknowledged that in addition to taking on the role of parents, teachers must provide counselling that will bring them closer to their learners. Felicia said that if teachers viewed their learners as their own children and showed them love, irrespective of colour, religion or tribe, LO lessons would become more successful and enjoyable. She said:

LO is about teaching love, ubuntu, where togetherness is critical. A rejected child is disrespectful and dangerous to society as they display compensatory behaviour.

Felicia believed that love could conquer all and encouraged teachers to assist emotionally needy learners in their classes without worry or fear. Despite facing many challenges, participants agreed that teachers should take on parental and pastoral roles to assist the learners.

Discussion

This study explored how LO teachers address cultural issues when teaching sexuality education. Data analysis highlighted the following key issues: (1) the need for cultural resonance between what LO teachers teach and the communities in which they work; (2) the dangers of LO teachers omitting important issues of the curriculum due to embarrassment or difficulty addressing them properly; and (3) the value of different sources of external support as resources from which teachers can learn and improve the quality of their work. The discussion that follows centres on these three key issues.

In this study, Griswold’s (2013) and Helleve et al.’s (2009) concept of the cultural diamond was used as a framework to make sense of the findings. Participants mentioned that their personal cultural and religious beliefs often contradicted the beliefs prevalent in the communities in which they work. Participants described how they avoided teaching topics in sexuality education that contradicted their culture, religion, and the communities in which they taught. This dissonance or conflict led to dilemmas which LO teachers faced when teaching about issues related to sexuality education. Findings from this study resonate with those from work by Beyers (2011), Browes (2015), and Goldfarb and Lieberman (2021) which also draw attention to the sociocultural challenges and barriers that can compromise sexuality education. In contrast, Ngabaza and Shefer (2019) have highlighted the need for a genuinely comprehensive sexuality education to equip leaners with accurate knowledge and open up productive spaces in which to engage with sexuality education, gender, and social justice issues. This highlights the need for cultural resonance between what LO teachers teach about sexuality education and the communities in which they work.

It is of great concern that cultural and religious conflicts between parents and teachers, and teachers and learners, pose such a massive barrier to open communication about sex, relationships, and sexuality. LO teachers mentioned that they omitted topics in sexuality education and remained silent on sensitive issues in order to avoid conflict, because communities disapproved of them teaching about these concerns. Such cultures of silence influenced discussions in the classroom, and made it difficult for LO teachers and learners to engage in meaningful conversations about sexual matters. They elaborated that they did not mention (or use) terms such as ‘sexual intercourse’, ‘vaginal fluid,’ and ‘sperm’ which are considered taboo in the communities in which they teach. Participants revealed that cultural taboos presented a challenge which made teaching sexuality education difficult. The findings of this study stress the dangers of LO teachers omitting important issues of the curriculum due to embarrassment or difficulty to address them properly. This has serious implications for the delivery of sexuality education and the responsibility that LO teachers have, to abide by and follow the LO curriculum guidelines. Clearly LO teachers in this study were abiding by a key principles of sexuality education recommended by UNFPA: namely, that sexuality education should advance gender equality, enhance sexual and reproductive health and promote human rights.

Participants described how they used social media platforms to address sociocultural challenges in teaching sexuality education. According to Griswold (2013), cell phones and social media platforms are cultural objects that have meaning and value in society. They allow the raw expression of ideas and emotions, making immediacy and intimacy possible. Furthermore, Griswold (2013) contends that the Internet is regarded by many as the ‘culture’ of the century, and has contributed significantly to the work of the education sector. Nevertheless, it is important for teachers to not only exercise caution and carefully consider the use of social media platforms but also be aware of the more negative effects of social media platforms on the behaviour of their learners.

Participants suggested that the involvement of health personnel and community role models could improve learners’ understanding of specific topics in sexuality education. Because cultural and religious conflicts severely compromised participants’ willingness to teach about sensitive issues, they sought different sources of external support, such as, social media platforms, health personnel, peer educators, and community role models. This finding signals the important role of different sources of external support as resources from which LO teachers can learn and improve the quality of their work. The findings of this study correspond with those in Tucker et al.’s (2017) research that found that some LO teachers lack the necessary resources, experience, training, or institutional support. This results in stress and a diminishing interest in the subject. To address these concerns, Tucker et al. (2017) contend that some of the teachers in their study expressed interest in collaborating with outsiders to teach sexuality education. In addition, Adeomi et al. (2014) contend that using peers as resources to provide information, skills, and support can exponentially extend and improve the social climate. Peer education and support are often very effective among teenagers because friends are primary sources of information about sexual matters, and peer influence often positively motivates their behaviour. This raises an important question about the role of the DoE in supporting LO teachers and monitoring the teaching of sexuality education in the LO curriculum. It also highlights the need for the DoE to plan and ensure the delivery of professional development workshops for LO teachers to equip them with knowledge and skills to address sociocultural challenges and use innovative strategies to teach sensitive topics in sexuality education.

Strengths and limitations

The notable limitations of this study include the fact that only secondary school LO teachers were chosen to participate, given that the focus of this study was on teaching sexuality education in secondary schools in the FET phase. Therefore, primary school LO teachers were not selected. Also, LO teachers were selected from public secondary schools situated in uMgungundlovu, one of the largest districts in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, which is most severely affected by HIV and AIDS. Future studies should explore teaching sexuality education in primary schools as well as private and rural, farm schools. A strength of the study is that it included urban, rural, and township schools with diverse socio-cultural complexities. Also, data were triangulated using multiple data sources such as narrative frames, collages, and lesson observations. The rich local narratives, although from a small sample, presented in this study can add value and insight into how the teaching of sexuality education and curricula can be revised and redesigned.

Conclusion

UNESCO (2018) had outlined the important role that teachers play in teaching forms of sexuality education that enhance knowledge, attitudes, and skills; develop positive values; inculcate respect for human rights, gender equality and diversity; and contribute to safe, healthy, positive relationships. Teachers are therefore crucial to equipping learners with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to prepare for the future, and to safeguard their and their partners’ sexual health.

However, to advance sexuality education, research is needed to identify the forms of sexuality education that best ‘fit’ the circumstances in which they are applied. What seems needed are holistic, collaborative approaches that talk openly and honestly about sexual and reproductive health, using technology and social media platforms to do so, and to address gender violence and social and gender inequalities. Findings from this study argue for the value of a collaborative approach to sexuality education that involves specialists from the education and health sectors as well as other services and parents. Findings from this study suggest that the DoE needs to play a more active role in supporting LO teachers and monitoring the teaching of sexuality education as part of the LO curriculum. There is also a need for LO teachers to be provided with professional development workshops to equip them with knowledge and skills to address sociocultural challenges and use innovative strategies to teach what are currently regarded as sensitive topics in sexuality education.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contributions of the six life orientation teachers who participated in this study.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this study was supported by a South African Department of Science & Technology-National Research Foundation Innovation Grant (Grant no: 107722).

ORCID iD

Jaqueline Naidoo

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