Children’s rights and teachers’ responsibilities: Reproducing or transforming the cultural taboo on child sexual abuse?
Date
2019
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Publisher
Human Rights Education Review
Abstract
Enhancing young learners’ knowledge about appropriate and
inappropriate sexual behaviour is crucial for the protection of children’s rights.
This article discusses teachers’ understandings of their practices and approaches
to the topic of child sexual abuse in Norwegian upper secondary schools, based
on phone interviews with 64 social science teachers. Countering child sexual
abuse is a political priority for the Norwegian government, and the Committee on
the Rights of the Child acknowledges several state initiatives to counter child
sexual abuse through education. Nevertheless, this study finds that teachers do
not address this topic adequately, indicating that cultural taboos regarding
talking about and thus preventing such abuse, including rape among young peers,
still prevail in Norwegian classrooms. Furthermore, emotional obstacles,
including concerns about re-traumatising and stigmatising learners, hinder some
teachers from addressing this topic thoroughly. Additional explanatory factors
include heavy teacher workloads, little preparation in teacher education
programmes, insufficient information in textbooks, and an ambiguous national
curriculum.
Description
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Keywords
child sexual abuse, culture, International Resources, Norway, Children´s rights, social science education, educators
Citation
Goldschmidt-Gjerløw, B. (2019). Children’s rights and teachers’ responsibilities: Reproducing or transforming the cultural taboo on child sexual abuse?. Human Rights Education Review, 01-22.