Devolution and difference: The politics of Sex and Relationships Education in Wales

Introduction

This paper outlines and analyses the wider public, political and legislative contexts which have led to a distinct Sex and Relationships Education (hereafter SRE) policy and practice framework in Wales, when compared to other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly England. ¹ Drawing upon policy documents and interview data gathered firstly from key policy makers and secondly from frontline professionals in Wales, we reflect upon the underlying character of the differences for SRE in the Welsh context. Central to this is the Welsh Government approach to SRE in terms of what we refer to as a sexually-informed citizenship and children’s rights agenda. However, even this does not give a fully rounded picture of the differences in SRE that can be seen in the Welsh context, and we argue that the contrast with England and other devolved nations is more complex, resting as it does in part upon a different framing of sexual morality and ‘family values’ in the English political landscape vis-à-vis that in Wales.

SRE has long been a rich field for comparative policy analysis. Not only is SRE an important area for research into differences in policy making, implementation and evaluation across various European countries and beyond, but also, because education is devolved in the UK to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, then the ways in which different administrations deliver SRE thereby illustrate the character of their different approaches to policy in general. Much comparative research has been done in the SRE field at an international level, however there has been a tendency to downplay if not ignore regional and national differences within the UK, whilst highlighting differences between the UK and its European neighbours. As an index of this tendency, Lewis and Knijn (2002) for example draw comparisons between England and Wales on the one hand and the Netherlands on the other. Their research explores the different contexts within which SRE policy has developed, but refers to ‘England and Wales’ when discussing England. This is in spite of the fact that powers over education have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG, now known as the Welsh Government) since 1999. Indeed a BBC news article published in 2002 claimed that ‘if you want to see devolution in action, education in Wales is a pretty good starting point’ (BBC, 2002).

In this paper, we fine tune such comparisons in a more nuanced way, framing this tendency to marginalize and/or disappear small nations in academic work on the postcolonial character of Wales (Aaron and Williams, 2005; Wyn Jones, 2005). The tendency to consider Wales peculiarly and inaccurately as part of the English education system offers some justification for adopting this approach since it is evident that not all commentators have demonstrated a rigorous understanding of the different legislative and policy contexts with regard to education in Wales. This means that there has been a lack of reflection on the different SRE policies and practices in evidence in Wales, particularly in recent years. In order to counter some of the invisibility and neglect that the conflation of Wales with England has brought about, this paper aims to critically interrogate whether and if so in what ways, there is a distinct ‘Made in Wales’ approach to SRE policy and practice.

To achieve this aim, our fieldwork research was conducted using a combination of elite interviews and content analysis of policy documents. Starting with interviews with senior civil servants involved in the development and dissemination of new SRE guidance (WAG, 2010), snowballing procedures were used to identify and interview the key players responsible for steering the policy development and consultation process. As Wales is a small nation, it was possible to interview all the main figures who had taken part in this exercise. A second layer of interviews was conducted with Personal and Social Education (hereafter PSE) advisors and Healthy Schools Co-ordinators identified through lists of contacts available on the internet and through attending and presenting at a PSE network meeting. Effort was made to include two advisors who worked in areas experiencing high levels of socio-economic deprivation and which were in receipt of Communities First funding. Further interviews were then conducted with teachers and voluntary sector staff engaged in grassroots delivery of SRE in various areas, spanning different urban–rural localities. Policy documents on SRE in all four nations of the United Kingdom were also identified and analysed. This analysis was further enriched by our existing understanding of equalities issues in social policy relating to children and young people in Wales (Pilgrim, 2009). Having outlined the remit for our research, we turn now to consideration of the different legislative contexts within which SRE in the UK has developed, situating these within current social policy debates on devolution.

Legislative contexts: Framing the debates

Acknowledgement of the particular character of devolved education is evident in recent debates about the different values which underpin education in the four nations of the UK. This has been recognized by others writing on social policy from a small nations, postcolonial perspective and provides a starting point for our arguments concerning the differences found in the Welsh context. The development of our analysis is particularly informed by Chaney (2011), who claims that within Wales, issues of equalities and human rights are embedded in education policies. That much said, he does not discuss the specific instance of Personal and Social Education (PSE), still less does he mention SRE, within which we would argue there is greater potential for such issues to be instated. This section of the paper will consider the divergent paths for SRE policy development that have been identified in the four UK nations. In so doing, we will first briefly touch upon other areas of service delivery, and take as a case in point, recent evaluations of youth offending policies to illustrate our arguments.

In relation to the Safer Communities initiatives, the movement of policy making in Wales away from an English ‘risk management’ style towards a ‘social justice’ model has been referred to as a ‘dragonization’ of policy, similar to the ‘tartanization’ of policies in Scotland (Edwards and Hughes, 2009; Drakeford, 2010). Drakeford argues that Labour-led administrations in Wales have pursued a different youth justice policy programme from that driving successive governments in England, even though the criminal justice system has not been devolved in Wales, as it has been in Scotland and Northern Ireland. He points to the development of a politics in Wales based on human rights entitlements, which posits that if systems are failing, it is a matter of determining where and how those systems have failed in providing Welsh citizens with their rightful entitlements to (amongst other things) health, welfare and education. As he puts it: ‘When things go wrong in the lives of children and young people, the Welsh focus has been on trying to put right flaws in the systems on which they depend, rather than on focusing on the “deficits” in young people themselves’ (Drakeford, 2010: 141).

In a similar vein, Davies and Williams (2009) also argue that WAG policies have been underpinned by, amongst other things, a strong commitment to citizenship values and social justice. They claim that a policy agenda has been pursued, particularly in the provision of public services generally, that diverges considerably from that of Westminster governments in terms of what the former leader of Welsh Labour and First Minister Rhodri Morgan has described as: ‘the creation of a new set of citizenship rights’ (Davies and Williams, 2009: 49). This contrasts with the analysis provided by McCafferty (2010) which identifies an increasing shift towards a ‘neoliberal pedagogy’ in education policy in England and Scotland. There are other stark contrasts between England and Wales: for example, Davies and Williams point out how former WAG special advisor David Egan maintained that whereas education policy in England was based on choice, contestability and the consumer, Welsh Labour has had at the centre of its policy a different set of ‘Cs’ – collaboration, community and the citizen (2009: 88). These values can be seen to underpin the Making the Connections programme in Wales with its aim of ‘putting the citizen centre-stage’ (WAG, 2004: 9). Such commitments are also summarized in the policy proposals for the Welsh School Effectiveness Framework, which posits: ‘collaboration across services, with a clear focus on the citizen’ (WAG, 2008b: 4, emphasis added).

Further framing for our analysis is offered by the provisions around equalities in the first Government of Wales Act (GWA 1998). Chaney and Fevre (2002) describe the way in which action to ensure equality is enshrined in the GWA (1998) suggesting that this imposes an ‘absolute duty’ on the Welsh Government to provide equality of opportunity to the people of Wales. Chaney (2011) outlines how this compares to other regional and devolved national governments in Europe. Wales is also subject to overarching legislation on equalities from Westminster (Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Civil Partnership Act 2004, Disability Discrimination Act 2005, Equality Act 2010) and in Europe (European Convention on Human Rights 1950). There are further framing devices at work here. Since its inception, WAG has been under left-wing administrations either of the Welsh Labour Party or of a coalition between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru. This has led to considerable emphasis being placed in Welsh policy on tackling the widespread poverty across the country as an equalities issue. Wales was also an early adopter of the gender mainstreaming approach being utilized in the European Union and has continued to explore progressive ways of providing equality of opportunity (Parken and Young, 2008).

All this has impacted upon how SRE has been and is currently being developed in Wales. As an index of these differences, we draw attention to the way in which in Wales, a higher legislative framework is provided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereafter UNCRC) (United Nations, 1989). Parker, Wellings and Lazarus cite the interpretation by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) of the UNCRC as meaning that: ‘sexuality education must help young people to acquire accurate information on sexual and reproductive health and rights and to dispel myths; to develop life skills such as critical thinking, negotiation and self-development skills; and to nurture positive attitudes and values’ (2009: 227). The UK ratified the UNCRC in 1991, in effect agreeing in principle that all policies and practices in the UK would be compatible with the provisions for children’s rights set out in the Convention. WAG was the first administration in the UK to create an Office of the Children’s Commissioner in 2001. A Children’s Commissioner was not appointed until 2003 in Northern Ireland, 2004 in Scotland and 2005 in England. In 2010, the Children’s Minister in Westminster pledged that the government would give due consideration to the Convention whenever making new law and policy. Chaney (2011) has argued that this still falls short of the Welsh Government’s uniquely strong commitment to the UNCRC as the basis for policy making, which was adopted as early as 2004. These differences are important. The four UK Commissioners submitted a joint report in 2008 to the UNCRC committee which highlighted their commitment to working together across national boundaries: ‘to make life better for all children in the UK through promoting implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (UK Children’s Commissioners, 2008: 4). In that report, the four UK Children’s Commissioners were critical of the level to which UK governments had implemented recommendations from Concluding Observations made by the UNCRC committee in 2002. Furthermore, in 2010 the Children’s Commissioner for England published his independent review of his role, describing its achievements as ‘disappointing’ (Dunford, 2010: 7). In this regard therefore, and in contrast to other devolved nations, England it can be argued has been falling behind in its commitment to providing rights-based services to children and young people.

Sex and Relationships Education: Policies for our times?

It is against this background that we turn to a more detailed consideration of SRE policies in the four devolved nations. We argue that policy guidance is very different in each of the four nations. In Scotland there is no statutory requirement to teach sex education. An advisory circular on the subject was published in 2001 by the Scottish Executive (2001). Although the guidance in Scotland is over twelve years out of date, the Scottish parliament is said to be drafting new SRE guidance and periodic reviews of SRE in Scotland, including in 2007, have been undertaken. In Northern Ireland, rather than biological sex education, there is a strong emphasis on relationships education, including friendships. This is partly based in a revised school curriculum introduced in 2007 (FPA, 2010) which introduced personal development and learning for life as core components for primary and secondary school pupils respectively. In Northern Ireland, policy guidance is mainly dependent on a 2001 circular from the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, supplemented in 2010 by specific guidance on eliminating discrimination against homosexuality in schools in Northern Ireland (FPA, 2010, 2011).

Meanwhile in England, there is a long established framework for SRE which has developed in particular since the Education Act (1996) but which dates back as far as the Local Government Act (1986), including as it did the infamous Section 28. The Learning and Skills Act (Department for Education and Skills, 2000), developed three years before the repeal of Section 28 in the Local Government Act (2003), made the provision of SRE compulsory in England, although parents were (and still are) allowed to withdraw pupils from these lessons. This guidance is now thirteen years old and can be seen as no longer fit for purpose in the light of legislative changes such as the Civil Partnership Act (2004), and developments in knowledge and understanding of the field of sexual health such as the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination programme. English guidance for the new millennium, whilst praised for its more progressive agenda after the right-wing approach to sex education in the 1980s (Pilcher, 2005), was criticized by many commentators for its failure to make SRE compulsory and for its emphasis on heterosexual marriage (Monk, 2001; Kane, 2008). There was some further limited guidance issued under the last Labour government (Department for Education and Skills, 2004). This was designed to improve young people’s access to sexual health advice services, thereby enhancing their sexual competency and levels of safer sex practice. Further SRE legislation was due to be introduced in early 2010 and, in the final months of the last Labour government, there were attempts to roll out compulsory SRE across all English schools. This met with strong resistance from religious faith groups on the grounds that this denied them the option of removing their children from SRE lessons. The latest development in the field of SRE in England has been a Private Members’ Bill proposed by the Conservative MP Nadine Dorries. Popular accounts described this Bill as recommending that SRE should be limited to advising young people to just say no. In fact it was both a weaker and more liberal recommendation, only suggesting that teaching about abstinence be made part of compulsory sex education in England. It was withdrawn before its second reading. There has been no real movement on the revision of SRE guidance in England more recently.

In contrast, new guidance on SRE in Wales was released in March 2010 (WAG, 2010) to mainly positive reception apart from some objections from a small number of religious faith groups. This makes Wales the most up-to-date of the four UK nations in providing revised guidance to those delivering SRE. What all these different SRE policy approaches across the UK highlight is that the political values frameworks underpinning policy formation make a considerable difference to SRE policy making and must be taken into account when drawing comparisons between countries. These differences are important. As an index of this, Lewis and Knijn (2002) point to significant differences in the political climate within which SRE policy develops, witnessed for example in ‘England and Wales’ as they refer to it, and the Netherlands. They describe the political context for SRE policy in ‘England and Wales’ as having been ‘fierce’, ‘adversarial’, ‘conflicting’ and ‘lacking coherence’, whilst they outline the Dutch context as characterized by ‘consensus’ and by having a ‘greater role for parents’ (2002: 673–676). They also suggest that in ‘England and Wales’, sex education has been a key tool in what they refer to as ‘the battle of family values’ (2002: 671), thereby turning back the clock on relationships outside marriage, homosexuality and what is felt to be immoral sexual behaviour. These differences in political pronouncements around sexual morality and in particular, ‘the family’, are also significant in the comparisons that we draw between SRE in Wales and in other UK countries, and it is to this dimension of our argument that we now turn.

Family values, sexual morality and party politics

To illustrate the role family values and sexual morality play in shaping different SRE policy approaches across the UK, we further disentangle the Welsh from the English political landscape by arguing that, with respect to recent SRE policy development in Wales, the political and cultural climate is more similar to the Dutch ‘consensus’ culture which Lewis and Knijn (2002) refer to. Lewis and Knijn (2002) claim that in the Netherlands, SRE has never been explicitly discussed in parliament and decisions on delivery have largely been passed to professionals, but that by contrast in ‘England and Wales’ (meaning Westminster), there have been intense parliamentary debates, resulting in a raft of legislation which framed SRE in ways which reflected the moral concerns of the day. For example, the Education Act (1986), which passed control of schools in England and Wales to school governors, made it clear that sex education must be taught within a moral framework. The Act explicitly stated: ‘where sex education is given to any registered pupil at the school it is given in such a manner to encourage those pupils to have due regard to moral considerations and the value of family life’ (Education Act 1986, Section 46, emphasis added). The Learning and Skills Act (2000) insists that schools refer to the importance of marriage in sex education, as well as issuing rules debarring from the classroom: ‘teaching and materials which are inappropriate having regard to the age and the religious and cultural background of the pupils concerned’ (Learning and Skills Act 2000, Section 148 Sex Education). The influence of conservative sexual morality can also be seen in the English SRE guidance passed by the Labour government in 2000, which explicitly emphasized the importance of marriage (Monk, 2001; Pilcher, 2005; Kane, 2008).

However, matters are more complicated than this brief history suggests. In England but less so in Wales, and for the last thirty years and more, there have been numerous discursive utterances around sex education allied to particularly heated debates about ‘the family’. In general terms, it is possible to situate these discursive utterances within a changing political landscape in which, prior to 1997, successive Conservative governments utilized SRE to roll back changes in sexual behaviours in order to promote a narrow view of the (heterosexual, married) family as a secure base for a functioning society. Legislation passed at the time made it clear that schools should not intervene to disrupt the transmission of heteronormative family values. Smith (1994) has argued that the location of Section 28 of the Local Government Act (1986) was not accidental. She suggests that the Conservative government, and Margaret Thatcher in particular, viewed (left-wing) Local Education Authorities (LEAs) as exceeding their powers by promoting homosexuality as a ‘pretended family relationship’ (Section 28, emphasis added). Viewed from within a New Right policy programme, such promotion was held to be an inappropriate assumption of responsibilities by ‘loony left-wing’ LEAs. Marriage was also central to this discursive construction of ‘the family’. Conservative rhetoric in the early 1990s was beset by the demonization of single, especially so-called ‘gymslip’, mums who were viewed as a serious social problem because of their welfare dependency. The public outcry surrounding lone motherhood reached new heights in 1993 with the murder of James Bulger and subsequent trial of Thompson and Venables, together with in December 1993, a visit by John Redwood (Conservative MP) to the impoverished Ely estate in Cardiff, and his public attack on the community exemplified in his infamous question: ‘Where are all the fathers?’ (McIntyre, 1993). In contrast, this was not a populist rallying call amongst Welsh politicians at the time.

Post-1997, New Labour’s discursive utterances around ‘the family’ were more pragmatic in tone. New Labour sought to work through consultation with parents and professionals and during this era, there were moves to increasingly professionalize parenting. As an index of the prevailing political discourse, we would point to the ways in which parenting was presented less as an innate skill and more as a learned craft, with a corresponding rise in how-to-parent books such as New Toddler Taming (Green, 2001), websites like Mumsnet, and broadcasts such as Supernanny (2004–2011, Channel 4). A National Childcare Strategy was a very early part of the New Labour programme, initiated with a Green Paper entitled Meeting the Childcare Challenge (May 1998). In 2007, the Labour government changed the name of the then Department for Education and Skills to the Department for Children, Schools and Families – significantly with Families in the plural. New Labour also contributed to ‘family support’ by encouraging a large upswing in professional childcare, with training courses designed to provide parenting skills and professional childminder skills, and by beginning to oblige parents of children exhibiting anti-social behaviour to go to parenting classes.

Yet by the time of the last election (May 2010), there was a growing sense of unease amongst Westminster politicians with respect to their often contested and contradictory political pronouncements on ‘the family’ and family values, leading to a lack of clarity and direction in policy terms. Some of the recent rhetoric around sex and sexuality positions the current Coalition government as being liberal if not radical even (for example, in terms of equal marriage) whilst at the same time being paternalistic in terms of regulation and control of for example, vulnerable adults’ and children’s sexualities. Witness for example the recent attempts to work with high street retailers selling age-(in)appropriate sexualized clothing for pre-teen girls. A 2011 BBC news report on the setting up of a website supporting parents who are concerned about items they are being sold, contains ambivalent statements by parent and Prime Minister David Cameron and other ministers, including the Liberal Democrat Children’s Minister Sarah Teather, who announced: ‘It is not government’s role to interfere in family life, but parents often tell me that they would like more support’ (BBC, 2011, emphasis added). There are clearly unresolved tensions here. At times, the Coalition appears to be neo-liberal in the sense of getting rid of legal and bureaucratic regulation and yet also reveals elements of ‘old style’ Toryism in its underlying rhetoric.

Not surprisingly, and in the absence of any clear moves from the Coalition government, recent media coverage has focused on ‘problem’ areas, and particularly on ‘problems’ in relation to white, working class and/or ‘looked after’ girls and young women. This can be seen in the press and online reports during 2011–2012 of the sophisticated ‘grooming’ of vulnerable under-16s by firstly young then older men, and the highly problematic racialization of this issue as related to Asian (Pakistani) men and Asian (Muslim) culture. There has also been a growing focus on a ‘wasted generation’ of young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs), with references to initiatives designed to get ‘welfare-dependants’ into education and/or employment. This much said, in Wales there have been different historical and political traditions around sexual morality and family values, which are reflected in the differences seen in Welsh approaches to SRE policies and practices.

Sex and Relationships Education: Welsh governance

In contrast to the fraught and often muddled public pronouncements in Westminister, speeches by the former First Minister Rhodri Morgan have sought to establish ‘clear red water’ between Cardiff and Westminster. This symbolic divide provides a further backdrop for evaluating SRE in Wales. In our research, we have found evidence of some specifically ‘red’ Welsh SRE policy-making characteristics. Documentary analysis has revealed a more citizenship-focused and children’s rights based approach to SRE policy in Wales. For example, Section 1.2 of the March 2010 guidance clearly states:

The Welsh Assembly Government is fully committed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Rights to Action (2005) sets out the Welsh Assembly Government’s Seven Core Aims for Children and Young People. Core aims 2 and 3 describe the entitlement of children and young people to access educational and health services. (WAG, 2010: 2)

Prior to this, the consultation document, Sexual Health and Wellbeing for Wales 2009–2014: Draft Working Paper (July 2009) had already renewed the Welsh Assembly Government’s commitment to:

Moreover, policy guidance in Wales indicates a clear view that SRE is designed to support and prepare children and young people through and beyond the education system. Section 1.15 of the WAG guidance explicitly states: ‘SRE helps learners to move with confidence from childhood through adolescence into adulthood’ (WAG, 2010: 5, emphasis added). In this process, issues of empowerment, entitlement and democratic participation are crucial. This can be seen as explicitly embedded in the WAG (2010) guidance, as Section 2.6 states:

Learners have the right to contribute in a meaningful way to the development and review of a sex education policy and SRE programme. Pupil participation, such as the school council, enables learners to express their views on their needs at different stages. Associate pupil governors play an important role in representing the views of learners in governing body discussions about SRE. (WAG, 2010: 7, emphasis added)

In addition to this content analysis, several of our interviewees also spoke positively of ‘pupil voice’ being important in effective SRE delivery in schools in Wales. See also the House of Commons Schools Council award-winning Domino Project devised by pupils from Radyr Comprehensive, Cardiff in 2012 (http://vimeo.com/40158540, accessed 21 June 2013).

Drawing further upon analysis of both policy documents and interview data, we have also found evidence of considerable efforts to make SRE delivery in Wales multidisciplinary rather than ‘silo’ based. This acts to ensure greater integration, inclusion and comprehensive coverage. Section 2.15 of the WAG guidance states: ‘Sex education policies need to be culturally and religiously appropriate, inclusive of all learners and sensitive to the needs of the local community’ (2010: 8). One of the Healthy Schools Co-ordinators interviewed pointed to the way in which: ‘What we did do is, once the new guidance on SRE had come out, we had a training day for Healthy Schools Co-ordinators and we looked at the new guidance, and we looked at data, and then we looked at examples of good practice’. She also spoke of the ‘good communication’ across different departments and of the importance of ‘joined-up’ practice: ‘Yesterday I had people from the Children’s Commission Office talking about how we can link with some of their work, I’ve talked to people who do fair trade schools, I’ve talked to eco-schools, we have to make sure all these different things have some common parts, otherwise it doesn’t really make sense for schools’.

Other interviewees drew attention to a variety of initiatives and programmes which have relevance for effective SRE development and delivery. For example, the All Wales Police Schools Liaison Programme was identified as a good SRE resource providing a ‘strong backbone’, as one interviewee described it, particularly in terms of e-safety and online ‘grooming’. Such multi-agency partnership working can be crucial, as a public sexual health practitioner in North Wales explained:

One of the Catholic faith [schools] wouldn’t have SRE delivered in their school because, you know, it goes against their belief about contraception and things and it was through the police saying that they had concerns in the community about the alcohol and the underage sex that they were witnessing, that it gave us a bit of leverage to go in there and speak to the governors, and then get the programme going in there.

Stonewall Cymru, Women’s Aid, ChildLine, Barnardo’s and Shelter were also mentioned by several interviewees as important in this multi-agency approach to SRE in Wales, particularly in terms of addressing issues of homophobia, domestic violence, child protection and housing insecurity. One Head of Sexual Health Promotion in South Wales also highlighted the ‘Speak Easy’ initiative (within the Flying Start programme) as designed to empower parents in talking to their children about, amongst other things, what she termed ‘uncomfortable’ issues around sexual practices and sexual relationships. Another PSE advisor across four boroughs in South East Wales highlighted the ‘helpful recommendations’ in the WAG (2010) guidance on how to talk about, for example, ‘inappropriate touching or abortion’.

It is therefore significant, given the gap that can often exist between policy and practice, that the values around citizenship, rights and entitlement identified earlier in the paper appear to have translated well into SRE delivery in Wales. Two of our interviewees were professional practitioners in an economically-disadvantaged area of South East Wales, where teenage pregnancy rates have dropped over a period of six to eight years from being the highest in Wales to being 11th (out of 22 local authorities). The collective action of education and health workers via the local Children and Young People’s Partnership (hereafter CYPP) to address what can appear to be intractable issues such as high teenage pregnancy rates, was cited as crucial in this area. When asked if the local CYPP had had an impact in leading to this drop in teenage pregnancies, another interviewee in the area responded: ‘For sure, I mean I would say they were a really effective partnership. They were one of the first partnerships to start using RBA [Results Based Accountability], their plans were really well developed’. When pressed to consider who or what might have been central to the success of the programme, she replied: ‘They just had a really good team, I think. Really hard-working, really good vision for what they wanted, I think a lot could have been learned from their partnership’. Other team-based, grassroots initiatives we came across include a Child Health and Emotional Wellbeing Group which operated in a middle-sized urban area in South West Wales, again as part of the CYPP.

We argue that this multidisciplinary approach taken in Wales also makes it easier to develop SRE out of the education ‘box’, enabling initiatives to be delivered through other channels besides schools. In a small nation the size of Wales, the All Wales PSE Advisory Group, the Healthy Schools Network and the All Wales Sexual Health Network were separately and collectively identified by several interviewees as having a significant impact. As a key policy officer in the National Public Health Service described it: ‘Any major difference made by SRE in Wales is only going to come about by everyone working together’ (emphasis added). The Welsh Assembly Government’s adoption of ‘progressive universalism’ (Drakeford, 2007) means that input from health and education professionals, can lead to effective initiatives developed through multidisciplinary working groups such as the CYPP, on whom there is a statutory obligation to provide a Children and Young People’s Plan for the local area. Moreover and as an index of their commitment to children’s and young people’s rights, staff from the All Wales Sexual Health Network spoke of the use of ‘segmentation’ in order to produce more sophisticated SRE delivery amongst sub-groups within the wider demographic. This ensures inclusion of young offenders or young people with learning disabilities. One PSE advisory teacher based in North Wales spoke of ‘tailor-made’ SRE delivery in the locality as being ‘sector-leading’. Similarly, a public sexual health practitioner also based in North Wales, highlighted work in pupil referral units and behavioural units because, as she said: ‘they are a vulnerable group of young people, that are doing perhaps just a bit more experimenting than a mainstream school’.

All this points to the potential in Wales for many cross-cutting issues to be integrated into SRE policy and practice. Interviewees spoke of issues as varied as Welsh language provision in Welsh medium schools, the needs of transgendered young people, and/or issues around children (especially boys) with poor literacy skills, as being important in terms of effective SRE delivery. Economic deprivation and social exclusion were also key themes. Wales has promoted its strong focus on eradicating child poverty under the One Wales agreement made by the previous Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru coalition government (2007) and a Child Poverty Strategy is now a core part of the Welsh Government policy programme. Many initiatives such as Flying Start, school breakfast clubs, refusal to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance and agreement to subsidize the university fees of Welsh-domiciled undergraduate students, are testament to the Welsh Government’s commitment to raising educational entitlements and opportunities in Wales. Provision of relevant and up-to-date SRE was therefore identified by many interviewees as one plank in a wider policy programme attempting to address specific Welsh needs and concerns.

In both our documentary analysis and our interview data, we also found evidence of a consensus that SRE should not be couched in terms of sexual morality and ‘family values’. One public sexual health practitioner pointed to the WAG (2010) guidance as ‘encompassing all sorts of sexuality issues now, which weren’t covered before. Because we bring it in, when we’re talking about sex, we’re conscious that we don’t say girlfriend/boyfriend, we specifically say partners, or whoever you choose to have that relationship with’. An advisory teacher for PSE in North Wales was clear that: ‘we’ve got to be sure that we address the needs of lesbian and gay young people in the classroom, even if we don’t know they are there, or if they’re not obviously out as yet. We’ve got to know that the package of education meets their needs’. From this, we conclude that a strong commitment to children’s rights and citizenship values in Wales has thus enabled SRE practitioners to move beyond the contested moral discourses around the ‘problem’ of young people’s sexualities, often fuelled by English tabloid headlines. ² As a result, Wales has pushed ahead with a progressive approach to SRE policy and practice which is respectful and encouraging of sexual diversity and certainly less focused upon ‘the (heterosexual, married) family’. As Section 1.17 of the WAG guidance states: ‘In a diverse society, learners will come from a variety of backgrounds and the Welsh Assembly Government recognises that there are committed and mutually supportive stable relationships outside of marriage’ (WAG, 2010: 5, emphasis added). This is taken further in Section 2.18 of the WAG guidance, where it states: ‘Equally, it is important that young people recognise diversity and show respect for others regardless of their sexual orientation. Hence teachers should deal with matters of sexual identity or sexual orientation honestly, sensitively and in a non-discriminatory way’ (WAG, 2010: 9).

In all this, it is important to note that SRE in Wales is not without its problems. There are considerable variations within Wales between the approaches taken at a borough county level on how to support the delivery of SRE in and out of schools. Some local authorities support SRE through a PSE advisor and others through Healthy Schools Co-ordinators. In addition, although there are two well established regular forums in which Welsh PSE advisors and Healthy Schools Co-ordinators meet, and web-based PSE curriculum support, we found little evidence of the widespread sharing of best practice in SRE delivery. While many professional practitioners across Wales voiced their strong commitment to multidisciplinary working, they also admitted that there could be better identification and dissemination of good practice. One PSE advisor, for example, pointed out that there was no database or repository of appropriate guest speakers in SRE and that schools had their own contacts with specialist speakers which they guarded carefully to prevent ‘poaching’. External input was viewed by some interviewees as problematic. As an advisory teacher for PSE in North Wales explained: ‘it’s fine to bring people in as a supplement, but what often happens is that they’re not coming in to supplement, they’re coming in to actually do the delivery, and that further de-skills the teacher’. The same interviewee spoke in some detail about the wider limitations of teaching SRE when:

we haven’t yet had a debate about what constitutes appropriate training for teachers to deliver sex and relationships education … what a lot of those teachers need are strategies for delivery. They need to expand their own comfort levels, they need to understand where their boundaries stop and start, they need help in understanding how to deal with personal questions … and at what point they should start encouraging young people to think about their own values framework.

More than this, as another PSE advisor claimed: ‘the big issue is trying to secure sustainable funding sources to put the support mechanisms in, to offer training, professional help and actually working with teachers in the classroom’. What can be achieved here is clearly constrained by the resources available, and the lack of sustainable funding was identified as problematic by several professional practitioners interviewed. As one public sexual health practitioner based in North Wales explained: ‘When I first came into the post, it was for six months, then it was extended to a year, and then it was extended by another couple of years. Which is great, but I just feel as if I’m getting somewhere and the rug’s going to be pulled’.

Nonetheless and despite some evidence of shortcomings on the ground, we conclude this section of the paper by arguing that there was a clear understanding on the part of interviewees, of the need to engage with children and young people in terms of rights, entitlement, empowerment and opportunity. There was also a strong consensus of the importance of a broader relationships education (as opposed to sex and relationships education) in order to boost self-confidence in the context of high youth unemployment, high levels of alcohol and substance misuse, and increased levels of obesity. As one Healthy Schools Co-ordinator maintained: ‘Personal development and relationships – we’ve decided to use that term rather than SRE because it wasn’t just about the curriculum and also if you’re looking at stuff outside the curriculum, there’s so much about relationships that it seemed to make more sense to write it that way’. She later added: ‘the word “sex” can stop people doing some of the stuff that’s much more basic, and that we want them to do’. Another advisory teacher for PSE commented: ‘the primary function of SRE should not be linked to public health goals of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. It will be a knock-on effect if you do it well, but the primary function of SRE is to enable young people to manage their sex lives responsibly’ (emphasis added). This ‘progressive universalism’ approach is in line with the shift away from the teaching of sex and sexuality in terms of biology or morals, and towards supporting all children and young people in terms of having positive attitudes and values towards their own self-development.

Conclusions

The paper concludes that at this point in time, SRE in Wales is moving in a different direction to that in England. Wales is in the unusual position of having a progressive political climate, positive and up-to-date SRE guidance and an extensive array of examples of multi-agency partnership working. In stark contrast to Westminster, Cardiff Bay enjoys cross-party consensus on the need to tackle issues of childhood and youth sexualities not just in terms of adult anxieties about over-sexualization and/or the sexual exploitation of children, or even simply as indicators of socio-economic deprivation, but, as importantly, as key issues of children’s human rights and citizenship values. Hence there are opportunities in Wales for an approach to SRE which is not restricted by the deployment of children’s and young people’s sexualities as a rallying ground for a morality politics based upon seeing sex and sexuality as ‘dangerous’.

This paper concludes that unlike in England, in Wales at the present time, there is a more favourable outlook for the development of robust and progressive SRE. What we have argued for is the real possibility of a SRE policy agenda that considers the rights of all children and young people in an inclusive and progressive framework, based upon what we have referred to as sexually-informed citizenship. It is this approach to both policy and practice which encourages greater understanding, mutual and self respect, and emphasis on relationships as life skills. Further investment in Welsh SRE at this time could support a wider range of such life skills, including assertiveness and recognition of self-worth, which will enable not only better access to education and employment opportunities, but also better strategies for children and young people to manage, for example, their intake of tobacco, alcohol and high calorific ‘comfort’ foods as well as to develop an enhanced ability to recognize and combat sexual bullying, coercion and exploitation. Development of citizenship values and children’s rights approaches to SRE may also be especially appropriate at this point in time in Wales, where a new Foundation Phase in early years education has been recently implemented (WAG, 2008a). This flagship policy is explicitly grounded in principles from the UNCRC with a strong emphasis being placed upon ‘global citizen’ values throughout, alongside the development of the child’s understanding of appropriate behaviour and relationships. A robust SRE at the core of the curriculum in Key Stages 2, 3 and 4, which follow on from the Foundation Phase, would thus seem an obvious means to continue to build on the values of this style of early years education.

That much said, we would like to add an important caveat. It remains to be seen if in a period of restricted public sector budgets, sufficient funding will be committed in this key area of children’s and young people’s self-development. As Parker, Wellings and Lazarus put it: ‘A favourable climate is necessary, but not sufficient, for sexuality education programmes to be effective. Funding and political support for programmes must be sustained for the continuous effectiveness of sexuality education to be ensured’ (2009: 241, emphasis added). Here again the postcolonial character of relations between Wales and England raises its head, for although the Welsh Government has power over the distribution of funding in policy areas where it feels money would be best targeted, the amount provided is determined in Westminster. It is necessary therefore to end on a note of caution in terms of how far Wales can go with the progressive SRE agenda which policy makers and practitioners have developed at this present time.