‘I think it depends on who you have, I was lucky I had a teacher who felt comfortable telling all this stuff’. Teacher comfortability: key to high-quality sexuality education?

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a research project that heard the perspectives on and experiences of the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme of a range of stakeholders in post-primary schools. The researchers listened to students aged from 13 to 18 years, to teachers of RSE, to principals and to parents/guardians in six post-primary schools across the Republic of Ireland. We found that teacher comfortability is one of the key components in the delivery of high-quality and effective RSE. By ‘comfortability’ we mean knowledge, expertise, confidence and appropriate pedagogical skills to teach this particular material. This view was shared by students, teachers, principals as well as some parents who commented on this aspect of RSE. We found that there are several factors that impede teacher comfortability, namely lack of qualification in Social Personal and Health Education/RSE, lack of initial teacher education input in this area, limited access to continuing professional development, an absence of mandated curriculum content and fear of external criticism especially by parents. Our findings are very similar to those of the NCCA [2019. Report on the Review of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in Primary and Post-Primary Schools. December. Dublin: NCCA] evaluation that took place in a similar time-frame and included a similar range of participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Relationships and sexuality education
• teacher comfortability
• adolescent perspectives on RSE
• impediments to optimum RSE

Introduction

The Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme¹ has been part of the curriculum in primary and post-primary schools in Ireland since 1995. That curriculum was intended to be flexible, allowing the input of key stakeholders at the local level in order to recognise the constitutional rights of parents in respect of the education of their children, and the rights of faith schools to uphold their ethos (Advisory Group on Relationships and Sexuality Education 1994; Government of Ireland 2020). In recognition of significant changes in Irish culture and society in the intervening two decades, in 2018, the Minister for Education and Skills requested that the NCCA conduct a review of RSE at primary and post-primary levels, focusing on the curriculum, the pedagogical approaches to teaching RSE and the resources supporting its delivery. The outcomes of that evaluation indicated an awareness of the need for a more comprehensive, interactive approach to sexuality education in Irish post-primary schools on the part of the majority of students, teachers and parents (NCCA 2019).²

In 2020, the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe published its Action Plan for Sexual and Reproductive Health. In order to achieve its stated goals of universal access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health and informed decision-making by all in this regard, the WHO recommended that comprehensive sexuality education be embedded in schools with input from key stakeholders including young people, parents/guardians and professionals. While the international policy may favour high-quality comprehensive sexuality education targeting adolescents, more limited provision tending to focus on disease prevention and risk reduction, sometimes only advising abstinence, is often the reality (Lameiras-Fernández et al. 2021; Walker et al. 2021). Templeton et al. (2017) argue that adolescents are considered to be a high-risk category for acquiring sexually transmitted infections and for engaging in risky sexual behaviour. According to Denford et al. (2017), school-based interventions have the potential to be effective in targeting such behaviours, but positive outcomes are design and implementation-dependent. School-based sexuality education often fails to meet the real needs of the student recipients (Salam et al. 2016).

There are multiple reasons for the inconsistency and inadequacy of practice on the ground compared with the ambitions of international policy. Policies and practices regarding sexuality education are simultaneously embedded in macro socio-political contexts while also reflecting local school and community traditions and cultures. They straddle both the private and public domains, which can give rise to conflict at the site of practice (Roien, Graugaard, and Simovska 2018). Teachers report that school policies and the attitudes of parents towards sexuality education can either help or hinder the delivery of a comprehensive programme in individual schools. Teachers also indicate that their own confidence based on training, or the lack thereof, impacts the quality and adequacy of provision (Janssens et al. 2020; Vanvesenbeeck et al. 2016; Walker et al. 2021). On a global level, there is a recognition that there is inadequate provision of initial teacher education (ITE) to prepare teachers to deliver comprehensive sexuality education programmes (O’Brien, Hendriks, and Burns 2021).

This paper reports on the findings of a state-funded review of RSE in Irish post-primary schools undertaken by DCU researchers from the fields of health and education. This took place during the same time-frame as the NCCA review, though it was a separate project. We interviewed 55 students from 1st to 6th year,³ 22 teachers of RSE, 6 principals and 11 parents/guardians in 6 second-level schools across the Republic of Ireland to hear their perceptions and experiences of the RSE programme. Our project used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to ensure that participant perspectives and voices were central to the study. In this paper, we draw on the insights of the participating principals, teachers, students and parents/legal guardians to outline how teacher comfortability emerged as being at the heart of positive experience of RSE for the respondents. We defined teacher comfortability as meaning that those who are assigned to teach the RSE programme have a sense of both ease and expertise with the subject-matter and feel confident and able to plan for and utilise the most appropriate pedagogical approach/es to aid teaching and learning in the RSE classroom. In this paper, we explore how learners, teachers, parents and principals understand teacher comfortability and its impact on teaching and learning in the context of the RSE classroom. We then examine a number of systemic factors that are reported as mitigating against teacher comfortability. These include teachers’ sense of their own lack of expertise and knowledge in the subject; the frequent changes of personnel delivering RSE in schools; the lack of a mandated state curriculum and the fear of potential parental complaints about the approach taken to content perceived as controversial.

The paper concludes by exploring whether the reported experiences of teachers and learners in Irish RSE classrooms are comparable with those reported elsewhere. It considers what is necessary in order to improve the delivery of a high-quality RSE programme for all learners with a particular focus on the Irish context, and takes particular cognisance of the NCCA (2019) evaluation.

Relationships and sexuality education: key themes and concerns regarding content and teaching

Studies, both international and Irish, detail student criticisms of the content and focus of RSE. Post-primary students often report that their programmes are over-focused on the biological and technical dimensions compared with the socio-emotional and pleasurable aspects, while also being perceived as too concerned with disease or disease prevention (NCCA 2019; Martínez et al. 2012; Timmerman 2009). Many learners are particularly concerned with the pedagogical approach to the teaching of RSE but equally with the attitude and behaviour of the teacher of these lessons (Allen 2005; UNESCO 2018).

Learners tend to want a teacher of RSE who is non-judgemental, respectful and open (Vilaça 2017; Pound, Langford, and Campbell 2016; Dobson, Beckmann, and Forrest 2017; Allen 2009). They also often want the curriculum to be sex-positive rather than judgemental and negative (Pound et al. 2017). They frequently want a teacher who is both sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject-matter and comfortable with both content and personal identity so as to be able to handle student questions and put the students themselves at ease (Martínez et al. 2012; Timmerman 2009; Allen 2009; Francis and DePalma 2015; Kontula 2010; Pound, Langford, and Campbell 2016). Unfortunately, the opposite is often the case resulting in defensive teaching and avoidance of the more controversial aspects (Dobson, Beckmann, and Forrest 2017) and student disruption due to anxiety (Pound, Langford, and Campbell 2016). Students are often keen to be taught by educators who can facilitate discussion in a safe, relaxed environment (Dobson, Beckmann, and Forrest 2017; Vilaça 2017), who use active learning approaches such as role play and drama (Pound, Langford, and Campbell 2016) and who can manage conflict effectively (Martínez et al. 2012).

Teachers are key players in the successful implementation of a successful RSE programme (Schutte et al. 2016). Teacher comfortability is at the heart of the delivery of good RSE in individual classrooms as places where teachers and learners could talk about sex, acknowledging the positives, the negatives, the concerns, the need for consent, safety and protection from harm, the importance of recognising and esteeming diverse identities, sexualities and relationships. The comfortability of the teacher in turn facilitates learner comfortability and enables active, dialogic learning in an atmosphere of trust and safety, an approach more typical of adult education (Kiely 2005). The majority of teachers, students and principals are all clear about the central significance of teacher comfortability, reflecting Irish and international research (Kontula 2010; NCCA 2019; Pound, Langford, and Campbell 2016). We explore here the literature on various aspects of teacher comfortability including subject knowledge, qualifications and efficacy, curriculum content, subject status and concerns about the support or otherwise of parents.

Given the significance of teacher comfortability, Pound, Langford, and Campbell (2016) wonder if RSE would be best delivered by specialist teachers with specific education and experience in what tends to be perceived as a controversial and sensitive subject. The circumstances of teachers of sexuality education, both internationally and in Ireland, tend to be far removed from that of the specialist expert in that particular subject however. Many teachers undertake relationships and sexuality teaching with little or no specialist professional development (Martínez et al. 2012; Buston, Wight, and Scott 2001; Flores 2005; Francis and DePalma 2015; NCCA 2019) and this has a noticeably negative impact on teacher comfortability. In Ireland, there is no recognised qualification in SPHE (which includes RSE) for registration with the Teaching Council. Those who teach RSE can avail of continuing professional development (CPD) provided by the professional development service for teachers (PDST).⁴ While some teachers have a particular commitment to RSE (Preston 2019) or at least are willing to teach it with proper supports (Collier-Harris and Goldman 2017), others are allocated these classes simply because they have insufficient hours in their own subject specialisms (Francis and DePalma 2015).

Internationally, teachers express concerns about various structural aspects of RSE. They worry about the absence of required curriculum content comparable with other subjects (Buston, Wight, and Scott 2001). Teachers note that the absence of examinations for this aspect of education and believed that this negatively impacts the subject status (Trundell 2017; Nolan and Smyth 2020). There can be limited state monitoring of the implementation of required content (Martínez et al. 2012), something deemed essential to ensure the quality of good provision to all students in all schools (Robinson, Smith, and Davies 2018). In Irish post-primary schools, a minimum of six RSE sessions per year is required; however, Nolan and Smyth (2020) note that the evidence suggests that only a quarter of Irish schools are actually meeting this target. In Ireland, there has been repeated evidence that there is uneven delivery of RSE both between schools (Morgan 2000; Mayock, Kitching, and Morgan 2007) and within schools (Geary and Mannix-McNamara 2003). Buston, Wight, and Scott (2001) reported similar findings in Scotland, as did Martínez et al. in Spain (2012). It is acknowledged internationally that sexuality education is a highly sensitive subject (Allen 2009; Kehily 2002; Leung et al. 2019).

Fear of potential parental objections has been reported to have a chilling effect on teacher willingness to include elements that may be considered controversial (Preston 2019; Leung et al. 2019). However, the perception of widespread parental objection may not be borne out in reality. Eisenberg et al. (2008) report that an extensive survey of parental views of sexuality education in Minnesota found that only a small minority of parents actually objected to the provision of comprehensive sexuality education. In the Irish context, the NCCA study (2019) evaluating the RSE programme reported that a minority of parent/guardian respondents were negatively disposed to the teaching of RSE in schools.

Sexuality education is one of those trigger points that makes liminal the deep-rooted tensions in society between the private, individual and family domains and the public, political and cultural domains (Roien, Graugaard, and Simovska 2018). In Ireland, this touches on the tensions in the relationship between State and family. It includes concerns about the nature of childhood and the fears of some that sexuality education will undermine innocence. It also touches on contested ideas about school ethos and the changing role of faith (both personal and institutional) in the public domain, thus bringing into sharp relief the tensions between pre-secular, secular and post-secular Ireland.

Nolan (2018) outlines how the contested views about RSE in the Irish context both mirror international experiences and reflects the particularistic experiences in this jurisdiction, especially the role played by the Roman Catholic church in the historical provision and control of health and education. She argues that Ireland, like many other countries, has been experiencing a shift from a morally absolutist, conservative underpinning societal model to a more liberal, morally relativist model evidenced, for example, by the outcomes of the marriage equality referendum in 2015 and the abortion referendum in 2018. The findings of both our own research and the NCCA (2019) evaluation indicate that the majority of stakeholders who engaged in each piece of research were informed by the more liberal, morally relativist model than the more traditional, morally absolutist model that has been assumed to inform societal attitudes to sexuality in Ireland. RSE in Ireland occupies a liminal, shifting space where some of those teaching it (including those in our study) and many of those learning it (including those in our study) express liberal, morally relativist views. However, other stakeholders continue to occupy the older, morally absolutist, conservative position. This may be part of the complex reason for the challenges in bringing about changes in the provision of this material.

Exploring RSE with stakeholders in Irish post-primary schools: our methodological approach

This study sought to understand how the RSE programme was experienced by four stakeholder groups: principals, teachers, students, and parents/legal guardians across six post-primary schools in Ireland. A hermeneutic phenomenological perspective was chosen as the methodological framework for this study.

All participants in this research were recruited through post-primary schools. The aim was to access a range of school types (single-sex and co-educational schools, different types of patronage, size and location). We interviewed 55 students (39 female and 16 male) from 1st to 6th year, as well as 22 teachers of RSE, 6 principals and 11 parents. Of the six participating schools, two were urban, one was suburban and three were rural. Two of these schools were denominational single-sex girls’ schools, two were inter-denominational Community Schools, one was an inter-denominational Community College and one was multi-denominational Community College. We did not gain access to any single-sex male schools⁵ despite repeated invitations and attempts to engage with these schools. The on-site interviews took place throughout 2017, straddling two school years. Analysis of a very extensive data set took place throughout 2018 with a final report being submitted to the funders in 2019.

Almost all students participated in a one-to-one interview (a handful was interviewed in pairs at their request). Principals and parents/guardians were also interviewed during a one-to-one interview. Teachers of RSE were interviewed in focus groups. The interview schedule consisted of one question for all cohorts:

Can you describe your experience of the RSE programme?

Further questions arose from the interviewees’ responses, giving rise to the prompt or probe questions, which sought clarity where necessary. Interviews ranged in duration from 10 min to 60 min. All teacher focus groups were 60 min long. All interviews were transcribed. The data were analysed through interpreting the stories given through the participants’ telling of their experiences. In other words, we immersed ourselves in the story as told to us by the teachers and the students of their lived experience of teaching and learning RSE as well as the lived experiences of principals and parents/guardians regarding RSE.

Through interviews and focus groups, the voices of principals, teachers, students, and parents/legal guardians, can be heard, offering us an insight into their ‘ideas, thoughts, and memories in their own words rather than in the words of the researcher’ (Reinharz 1992, 9). In doing this, we seek the meaning(s) and understandings(s) that participants gave to their experiences. Hermeneutic phenomenology aims to bring forth that which needs to be thought about. It is an invitation to think. To articulate thinking, one needs to listen in the corners and the shadows of the lived experience(s) of the phenomenon being investigated. The method ‘embraces multi-perspectival, embodied and experiential ways of knowing’ (Dibley et al. 2020, 7). It represents a process of reflection, thinking, questioning, writing, and rewriting.

This method is underpinned by the philosophy of Heidegger (1969) as he was concerned with being in the world. The essence of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is ‘Dasein’ which he explains as the human being in the world – the ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence. Human being is always involved in the world as they experience it. Johnson (2000) suggests that Heidegger views the human being as always involved in the practical world of experience. Heidegger (1962) indicates that being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein. Being-in-the-world (Dasein) as teachers of RSE, for example, can be seen as being active participants in that world, creating meaning and understanding in their teaching practices. Students of RSE, on the other hand, are active recipients and participants in the reception of their RSE education through their learning. Principals are in the world of leading teaching and learning in their respective schools and all the administration that this entails such as the scheduling RSE, and sensitively balancing the appointment of teachers to the subject with their levels of expertise and comfortability. Parents/legal guardians occupy a unique position whereby they simultaneously are both passively and actively participating in their children’s education. Hermeneutic phenomenology seeks to understand the meaning that participants give to this experience.

In the following two sections, we present examples of the perspectives and experiences of our interview participants. First, we explore their views on teacher comfortability, its importance and its impact on teaching and learning. Second, we consider the insights offered by participants on those factors that impede and support teacher comfortability in the RSE classroom. While we report on the findings of our own research, we draw on comparisons with the findings reported by the NCCA (2019) evaluation given that both projects were conducted in a similar time-frame and engaged with similar participants.

The impact of teacher comfortability on teaching and learning in the RSE classroom

One of the over-arching findings of our study was that while some students and RSE teachers are comfortable talking about sex and relationships in the RSE classroom, many others do not share this ease of experience. It was also clear from the comments made by student participants from 1st to 6th year, RSE teachers, principals and parents/guardians that teacher comfortability is a key component in ensuring a positive, dialogic learning environment that is essential for good RSE learning. Part of the challenge to that comfortability (for both teachers and learners) was understood by the young people who talked with us as being rooted in personal embarrassment (potentially for all concerned) due to the subject-matter.

Some of us would like find it [sex] embarrassing to like talk about that kind of stuff. (1st year female student, co-educational rural Community College)

Students explained how embarrassment could result in a lack of teacher comfortability and avoidance of the topic in the classroom:

I feel like it's kind of a topic where I don’t mean to be bad on teachers but they obviously do feel a little bit awkward talking about it [sex], so they try and avoid it as much as possible … (4th year female student, co-educational Community School).

Students recognised that not all teachers were equally comfortable in teaching RSE and that their own learner comfort was very strongly linked to the comfort and ease of their teacher. Some students expressed sympathy for the teacher having to cover potentially uncomfortable content. A 2nd year student described her sense that RSE must be hard for the teacher to teach because it was uncomfortable for the students:

I suppose it’s just it must take a lot of guts to try to stand in front of a bunch of 14 year olds and go … because like we’re not that mature yet so we’re like (laughs) sitting in the back of the class going ‘Did I hear what Miss just said?’ and she is trying to teach us all about it and we’re like (laughter) ‘She said … ’ kind of like. Or laughing at a picture of like the diagram or something on the board and everything. Or some people laugh at it and some people are like ‘Oh my God, what is she doing? Oh my God!’, just ‘when will this class end?’ kind of thing so yeah. (2nd year female student, rural co-ed Community College)

Teacher comfortability was identified as crucial by RSE teachers we interviewed.

Not everybody is suitable to teach it either. You have to be very, very comfortable with allowing the classes to flow in the way of your students and being able to abandon what you had planned. (RSE teacher, multi- denominational Community College)

There are some people who are in the role who aren’t comfortable, and don’t want to teach it. (RSE teacher, inter-denominational Community School)

Principals noted the centrality of teacher comfortability in being suited to the work:

I’m happier at present that I have a staff, and particularly those who are assigned to the RSE areas, who are perhaps much more comfortable in addressing the issue. …  … Definitely the teachers who are teaching RSE now I know that each and every one of them have no issue with it, but even if they have, they’ve a little network among themselves to say ‘well I’ll take your class while I’m doing it and you can go into mine if you feel very uncomfortable about that’ and God there’s no problem with that. (Principal denominational single-sex girls’ school)

Most participating parents/guardians had little to say about the teaching of RSE beyond noting that they appreciate the support in this sensitive area without expecting the school to do all the work. One mother explained:

As long as I know that the support is coming from that side of the school, with the relationships and things like. I’m not … I don’t expect the school to run with it and for me to sit back and go ‘Oh here, that’s grand now, that’s all sorted’ (laughs) but it’s nice to know that it’s there and they’re bringing them on forward and they’re showing them the right way to go about it. (Mother to junior cycle daughter and senior cycle son, inter-denominational Community College)

One of the parents stressed the significance of those positive educational relationships and ease in the classroom to enable a positive learning environment and learner comfortability in RSE.

Good relationships, just to start off between teachers and pupils is the biggest starter and everything else just flows. (Mother to junior cycle daughter and senior cycle son, inter-denominational Community College)

Where teacher comfortability was in evidence, good relationships and teacher ease encouraged learner comfortability. As one male student explained:

What I mean is it’s my tutor, and he’s also my geography teacher, so he’s my closest teacher if I have to be close to a teacher. He’s my tutor, which is the main person we met straight away. And that helps when it’s your SPHE teacher as well, because - yeah, that’s kind of needed because some topics can get quite personal, so you can kinda want someone who you know well. (3rd year male student, co-educational urban Community School)

Those with a positive experience of RSE realised that their experience was not a universal one. The point argued in the comments below from a 4th year student and a 6th year student was replicated in many other student interviews. This was a key reason that we argued that the major differences in student experiences of RSE were linked to their assigned SPHE/RSE teacher(s) rather than being school-specific. Students in the same school could have a very different experience depending on teacher comfortability.

Yeah it feels comfortable. I think it depends on who you have, like I was quite lucky that I had a teacher who felt comfortable telling all this stuff. You know like she even … you know the bits that they’re kind of like oh we don’t really … it’s a bit awkward … she didn’t feel awkward at all, you know she just came out and said it and it makes the classroom feel a lot more relaxed you know everyone is like okay this is fine, you know. So it’s a lot better just depending on who you have. (4th year female student, suburban co-ed Community College)

Yeah, so that would be the SPHE teacher. So some of the SPHE teachers, like with my own, I know she was great, she was always there for you, she was always there. But there is some that perhaps they mightn’t be as comfortable talking to students about certain issues. (6th year male student, co-educational urban Community School)

A 5th year student recalled her junior cycle experience of SPHE in general and remembered that some of her teachers seemed to have taken a casual approach to input and engagement. She put this down to teacher discomfort with the subject resulting in lack of serious engagement by some teachers which impacted on the extent to which their students took the subject seriously.

I mean so far this year we’ve just kind of watched movies it's usually kind of a free class, lots of people end up doing homework in it and stuff. As far as 3rd year, I know that we did SPHE but we had it once a week and a lot of the time it was a half an hour class and I think there's obviously like a lot of different teachers in the school that do SPHE because it's usually the tutor of a class group. But as far as my teachers or my tutors were concerned, I don’t think a lot of them felt very comfortable doing kind of SPHE, so we ended up usually having a free class or a class to do homework or study … . We really never did (RSE). Like I know that there was an SPHE book, I never got it. So we really didn’t do much SPHE, it was always kind of just a free class or a class that we could talk to our friends in. Like there was never much structure in it, probably some other classes got it I know. I have a sister in 3rd year she says they do SPHE but they again don’t really do RSE. (5th year female student, co-educational urban Community School)

Teachers were clear – teacher comfortability makes RSE easier to teach and results in students finding it easier to learn:

I think it’s when the teacher feels comfortable with the subject area itself. I think it is easier to teach. I think it’s easier on the students as well. (RSE teacher, inter-denominational Community College)

For some learners and teachers, the RSE classroom was a place of discomfort fed by embarrassment with the subject-matter. This in its turn impacted the quality of teaching and learning that took place, resulting in less trusting relationships for all involved. Where teachers in the RSE classroom were comfortable with both subject-matter and pedagogical approaches, students, teachers, principals and parents/guardians expressed positivity about teaching and learning. The key impact of teacher comfortability meant that students in the same school could have significantly different experiences of this important subject. Our findings about the central importance of teacher comfortability mirror those of the NCCA (2019, 25) evaluation which reported: ‘For students, the key enabler to a quality experience of RSE is the teacher’. The NCCA (2019) evaluation also indicated that post-primary principals felt that lack of teacher confidence (central to teacher comfortability) was the most significant challenge to the provision of high-quality RSE.

Systemic factors impacting teacher comfortability

One of our participating principals expressed the following concern about the quality of RSE in her school:

It’s strange that today with all the progress that has been made in the area I would still struggle to actually say how or if our present students leave feeling any better than what I’ve currently described and that’s a huge concern for me considering all of this is in place and we should be meeting those needs but I don’t really believe that we are. … Now that’s no disrespect to either our teachers or I’m hoping our management. (Principal, denominational girls’ rural secondary school)

She worried that the relatively poor quality RSE-type education she had experienced in her own post-primary schooling had not improved in the intervening period despite all of the work done by policy-makers, curriculum designers, teachers and school leaders. Given the finding of both our study and the NCCA (2019) evaluation of the central importance of teacher comfortability for high-quality teaching and learning in the RSE classroom, it is important to explore the factors that are mitigating against comfortable, expert delivery and engagement.

Our participants identified several systemic factors mitigating against teacher comfortability in the case of RSE. First, there is no specific qualification in either SPHE or RSE (which is an embedded part of the SPHE curriculum) meaning that post-primary teachers are expected to gain expertise as they go along rather than through an ITE programme as is the case for other subjects. One RSE teacher, reflecting on being a qualified expert in history and religion, making a comparison with RSE, noted that her sense of ease in her subject areas (history & religion) compares negatively with her unease in SPHE/RSE. This, she argues, impacts on the students’ experience of learning as well her own experience of teaching. She stated:

I go in there energised, but when I go into my SPHE class, and I’ve the same class for religion, they even notice the difference, I’m just not motivated enough. (RSE teacher, inter-denominational Community School)

Teacher focus group interviews indicated how teacher comfortability is strongly linked to the sense of mastery over a subject that a qualification enables. This is missing for many RSE teachers. Both school principals quoted below talked about making up the deficit in their ITE for people teaching SPHE and RSE through targeted CPD.

Training of staff is critical. We absolutely don’t put people into SPHE and consequently RSE unless they are properly trained. … the individuals are important, and I suppose that’s where the training comes into it as well …  … And I suppose just common sense is a great thing. (Principal multi-denominational rural Community College)

I think constantly upskilling our teachers. I think you can teach it for a while, but things change and in the whole social media context, I think there’s probably more training necessary. I think evaluating our programme yearly is probably important. I think maybe looking at a programme for students with special needs we’ve already, one of our teachers is trained in that area and I think her disseminating that maybe to the SPHE team so that when they’re teaching that they’re mindful of these students who may be thinking of it in a different way. (Principal, suburban inter-denominational Community College)

RSE teachers reflected this sense that they needed constant upskilling, in order to best serve their students, as the two comments below demonstrate.

It’s more training I think we need (RSE teacher, inter-denominational Community School)

I feel a great sense of duty to the students who are sitting in front of me to make sure that they get the most out of it and to make sure that I am up to date with it as well. (RSE teacher, multi- denominational Community College)

Second, because SPHE (including RSE) does not require a specific qualification to teach it, the subject can be used as a means of ensuring part-time and full-time teachers make up their full required, contracted hours. It is one of the few subjects with any flexibility in part also because it is not an examination subject. One of the consequences of the use of this subject to meet both contract and timetabling requirements is that in some schools the SPHE and RSE teacher of a cohort changes from year to year depending on timetabling needs.

… it’s unfortunately kind of the precedent that perhaps was here and the culture that we had. We just didn’t hit the ground running and we didn’t … if there was an urgency with this it went over our heads. It was a tag-on and it still remained a tag-on …  … I won’t lie to you, is it the priority in the timetable? It’s not. It’s not. I’m worried about who is going to teach my honours maths class and my honours English class and I get those sorted first. (Principal, denominational single-sex girls’ school)

Students reported covering the same content in RSE each year from 1st to 3rd year because of annual changes in personnel.

Int:

Have you had the same teacher every year for RSE and SPHE?

Student:

No. In 1st year we had Miss X, she left the school so then we got Miss Y, and then she was still in the school but we got Miss Z for 3rd year.

Int:

So you’ve had three different teachers and were they covering different stuff each year in RSE these three different teachers?

Student:

No, it was the same videos. (4th year male student, co-ed urban Community School)

Third, there is no mandatory State curriculum for RSE and, as noted earlier, it is not an examination subject. Instead, there are guidelines regarding content, and advice that RSE content should take account of local needs and concerns including seeking the views of parents and accommodating school ethos.

I like teaching it [RSE] as well. I’m comfortable teaching it. The parts I might be uncomfortable around say when we were devising our programme, because it’s not really a set national programme, there’s guidance or whatever but we’re only getting to be doing 12 lessons and we picked the topics, you know. (RSE teacher, denominational single-sex girls’ school)

Teachers in the focus groups talked about their wish that the State would take greater responsibility for RSE – the phrase ‘with a harp on them’⁶ was used to indicate a wish for a mandatory curriculum in case of potential parental objections.

I find at junior cycle, I think it is a bit clearer, you know it is more clear, just the fact that the contraception isn’t clearly included you know, keeping healthy, keeping safe, I’m sorry that’s very vague, you know what I mean, I want clarity, I want clarity from the top and I would like more modern up to date resources with the Harp on them. (RSE teacher, denominational single-sex girls’ school)

Teachers and principals talked about their own anxiety about (and potential avoidance of) RSE material they saw as potentially controversial in the eyes of parents.

it’s just that it, as we know, sexuality colours every single aspect of your life and it comes up everywhere and in all subjects, I’m teaching history as well and it can come up and, but I was teaching religion and theoretically you’re not talking about RSE, but we’re doing morality and so I just started to talk to them about consent, this is in third year now and I was very much aware of like well how much, how far can I kind of go with this? I mean so we’re talking about consent, clearly talking about people then that don’t consent, that’s rape. I mean can I say the word? Am I allowed? Am I allowed? Where am I with this? … So, you’re gingerly kind of approaching sometimes. (RSE teacher, inter-denominational Community School)

The lack of state-mandated content for the subject was reported by school staff as a cause of uneasiness.

I don’t know and I never have but there is a kind of thing in the back of your head that like would parents be questioning ‘are you doing this?’ (RSE teacher, denominational single-sex girls’ school)

So I try and stick with the book you know as much as I can but even after that discussion I felt a bit nervous about you know what was said in the discussion and could it have offended anybody. Could parents have maybe been a bit … if they had heard you know things out of context that we were discussing – lesbianism, transgender, you know. They may be frightened by it. So, I feel there’s a little bit of … a bit of a fear in me about actually doing … (laughs) you know talking about it again. (RSE teacher, denominational single-sex girls’ school)

In summary, our research found that there are a number of systemic factors that are mitigating against teacher comfortability at the point of delivery of RSE, namely in the classroom. The lack of a required qualification had several impacts. First, it meant that post-primary teachers tended not have the benefit of expertise acquired in their ITE to give them confidence in their subject-matter and in the use of the most suitable pedagogical approaches to foster a respectful, dialogical, interactive classroom. This in its turn led to reliability on the provision and availability of CPD. Students, principals, teachers and parents in the NCCA (2019) evaluation all stressed how important expertise and specialist training are for good RSE teaching. One post-primary teacher said: ‘A qualification would be a good thing. The subject deserves that recognition – without it, will it ever be taken seriously?’ (NCCA 2019, 48).

Second, it meant that any teacher could be allocated SPHE and RSE as part of their annual timetable, whether they had expressed any interest in the subject or had any qualifications in teaching it. The NCCA (2019, 37) evaluation concurred with our finding in this regard and reported a principal as saying: ‘It’s becoming that kind of subject where you might fill up a teacher’s time with it to make up hours.’ Participants in our study indicated that this approach to the annual allocation of teachers resulted in regular personnel changes for SPHE and RSE at the school level, meaning that some students received an inconsistent and incomplete RSE experience.

As noted already, RSE was intended to be delivered by each school based on local need, in consultation with parents and in sympathy with the school’s ethos. This has meant that there are guidelines about content, resources and time allocated. One of the post-primary teachers quoted in the NCCA (2019, 47) report stated that the ‘lack of prescription leaves us very confused about what should be taught’. The lack of a prescribed curriculum was perceived by teachers and principals alike as problematic because it left choices about the inclusion of what was perceived as more controversial material to the individual school and teacher. Concern about parental objections was reported by principals in the NCCA (2019) evaluation. Teachers and principals in all of our participating schools expressed concern that this might lead to parental objections and noted that this was having a chilling effect on their practice and ultimately on the students’ learning.

Concluding discussion

The study reported here indicated that there were specific factors in schools and classrooms that either supported or undermined teacher comfortability (and in turn, learner comfortability) in the RSE classroom. What emerged from our conversations with students aged from 13 to 18 years of age was that their experiences of RSE differed both between schools and within schools reflecting findings of other Irish researchers (e.g. Nolan and Smyth 2020) as well as findings of international research (e.g. Buston, Wight, and Scott 2001; Martínez et al. 2012). The study also found that teachers and principals were committed to the provision of good quality RSE for all but were aware that there were multiple factors that potentially impeded these good intentions, many of which were systemic issues rather than local issues in the control of the individual teacher or school. Our respondents were aware that this subject is a particularly sensitive one for teachers, learners, parents and the wider society, mirroring the findings of international studies (Kehily 2002; Leung et al. 2019; Preston 2019).

Attaining that place of comfortability was made more challenging for our participating teachers because SPHE and RSE are not areas of specific qualification in their ITE programmes. The lack of professional preparation in this area is not unique to Ireland (Flores 2005; Francis and DePalma 2015; Martínez et al. 2012). Although CPD in RSE is available, and has been provided by PDST since 2010 (Wilentz 2016), it is not mandatory. Principals in Irish schools depend on the goodwill of teachers who are willing to take SPHE and RSE, which they typically do for a year or two but rarely for longer. As a result, there is a constant demand for CPD for those newly taking up teaching in this area. The PDST (2014) reports on the limitations of cascade CPD models for knowledge diffusion throughout a school, a finding also reflected widely in the literature (Day 1999; Solomon and Tresman 1999; Kennedy 2005). There is clear international evidence that high-quality CPD and support positively impact students’ experiences of, and learning from RSE (Martínez et al. 2012; Schutte et al. 2016; Vilaça 2017).

Teachers and principals in our study noted the concern about potential parental objections as a source of anxiety about RSE that is not shared with other subjects, and highlighted how this impeded teacher comfortability. It is important to acknowledge that RSE is not treated by the State in the same way as most other subjects. While post-primary schools are required to provide six sessions of RSE to each year group, there is less mandated specificity about the content. The programme is organised into modules and guidelines rather than having required content. Local schools are supposed to have the freedom to respond to local needs, and the NCCA (2019) review continues to favour this flexibility. The concerns regarding the negative impact of lack of mandatory curriculum content on teacher comfortability in teaching a comprehensive RSE programme reflects the findings reported in international research (Buston, Wight, and Scott 2001; Preston 2019). It is interesting to note that none of our participants made any reference to a similarly chilling impact of school ethos and that only one principal in the NCCA (2019) evaluation noted any negative issues caused by school ethos on the content or teaching of RSE.

It is ironic that the one subject where people may struggle with their own comfortability (as well as lacking a specific mandatory qualification in that area in order to teach it) is the one where schools are given the most freedom (or responsibility) to decide that content. Schools and teachers have to do this in the absence of a full qualification in that area and are dependent on ongoing CPD to build skill and confidence. The use of online coaching supports, such as those described by Schutte et al. (2016), may further support and resource teachers of RSE, thus aiding teacher comfortability.

In recognition of the reality that RSE does not happen in a vacuum but is a complex cultural and political phenomenon (Johnson 1996; Kehily 2002), we argue that there is a need for open and informed discussion about sexuality education at the national level if we are to produce a better climate for teaching and learning RSE utilising a comprehensive, rights-based programme for all, both in school and in other spaces including the home. It is interesting to note that the country where parents are most comfortable teaching their children about sexuality in the domestic context is Sweden where there has been a compulsory school-based sexuality education programme since 1954 (Goldman 2008). Creating societal comfortability takes time and sustained investment.

Human sexuality is a topic that touches on all our most intimate selves and experiences. It reflects the various ethical perspectives people hold dear. Rather than hoping the whole issue can be quietly handled in schools, we need to actively address the culture of silence and shame around the topic of sexuality on a societal level to enable everyone to be more fully informed and more comfortable to debate robustly about the content and approach to the teaching of sexuality education to children and young people. Societal discomfort is in its turn impeding teacher comfortability. Robinson, Smith, and Davies (2018) argue for State funding of, and support for community sex education projects to address the underlying silences and taboos. There is a case to be made in Ireland for genuine dialogue that includes all stakeholders, and all shades of opinions but such dialogue requires significant preparatory work to enable discussion to take place.

There is a clear argument for more research using in-depth interviews and observation of teaching and learning in RSE classrooms because it may give more insight into effective teaching and learning, the relational aspect of the good RSE classroom and the impact of external factors that practitioners perceive as impeding their comfortability and their practice. It is also crucial that further studies include single-sex boys’ schools given their non-participation in this study and the fact that we know from previous studies (e.g. Mayock, Kitching, and Morgan 2007) that their enactment of RSE is lower. Rocha, Silva, and Duarte (2021) note that, internationally, studies have tended to be survey-based and that a more holistic approach to the evaluation of sexuality education might lead to a deeper understanding of this complex subject. Such in-depth insight would not only support informed public discussion. It might also break the cycle in Irish RSE of tending to react to events (Wilentz 2016) rather than being proactive in response to informed and agreed current and future needs.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Patricia Mannix-McNamara, Eleanor Formby and Surya Monro, who commented on an earlier draft of this paper and whose expertise has been hugely useful. We would like to acknowledge Ciara O’Donnell, the Director of PDST (Professional Development Service for Teachers) and her colleague Caroline Harrison, PDST Advisor, for their particular observations and clarifications to ensure accuracy. We also gratefully acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers whose close reading and insightful comments have contributed significantly to the final version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Lodge

Anne Lodge is a Full Professor in the School of Policy and Practice and Director of the Church of Ireland Centre in the Institute of Education in Dublin City University where she teaches courses in sociology of education and culture and ethos.

Mel Duffy

Mel Duffy is Assistant Professor in Sociology and Sexuality Studies in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Research Interests where she teaches courses in sociology and sexuality studies.

Maria Feeney

Maria Feeney was a Postdoctoral Research Officer in the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University.

Notes

1 RSEis one component part of the broader Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) programme at the junior cycle. In the senior cycle, the situation varies as schools provide for it in different ways, sometimes through other subjects, sometimes through ‘Guidance’ and Pastoral Care.

2 An RSE Development Group was established by the NCCA in 2020. Due to the impact of Covid, there were delays in commencing the work to create Toolkits for the teaching of RSE in the primary and post-primary sectors. It is hoped that the final Toolkits will be available to support an updated RSE programme by mid-2022.

3 1st years are typically 12 or 13 years of age in Irish post-primary schools and those in 6th year are typically 17 or 18 years of age.

4 PDST, the Professional Development Service for Teachers, was established in 2010. It offers professional learning opportunities for teachers and school leaders at primary and post-primary levels.

5 Sampling note: No single-sex boys’ school elected to participate in the study despite multiple invitations and follow-ups. This meant that findings relating to an important pupil cohort and their teachers do not exist. We were very interested to learn about how RSE was taught and experienced in these schools and how parents felt about it but we still have unanswered questions.

6 The Irish harp is used on the seal of office of the President of Ireland, and is the emblem of the Irish State at home and abroad. It is also used by Government Departments and Offices. By using the phrase ‘put a harp on them’, the respondent was indicating a desire to have a formal curriculum devised by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and approved by the Minister for Education and Skills.