Lessons from Latina Sex Ed School: Reflections on a Parent-Led Puberty Education Program for Latina Girls

ABSTRACT

This article documents the framework, central principles and curricular plan for a parent-led puberty education program facilitated with a small group of Latina adolescents. In a moment of increasing awareness of the centrality of race, puberty education has remained steeped in a colorblind framework; this parent-led program seeks to offer a counterpoint to that. The author hopes this framework helps inspire a conversation among educators, parents and youth workers about what it means to think about puberty education from the lens of race and in doing so, how we grapple meaningfully with what it means to formulate and articulate a feminist approach to puberty education for Latina girls.

KEYWORDS:

• Latinas
• Health Education
• Parent-Led Education

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank the parents and children who participated in this project, including Erika Englund my co-collaborator and co-facilitator. I would also like to thank Sonia Sanchez, M.A. student at the University of San Francisco, for her editorial help in getting this piece ready for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.