Responsabilidade de quem? O que pensam os pais de alunos do ensino fundamental sobre a educação sexual na escola.

Abstract

The National Curricular Parameters (NCPs) included Sexual Education in the school curriculum as one of the cross-cutting themes in health, the main objective is to reduce the cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and teenage pregnancy. In 2007, the Health and Education Ministries established an intersectoral policy through the Health in School Program (PSE), which proposes to work on Sexual Education that is one of its components. Discussions about the work with the topic of sexuality in the classroom still generate polemics and conflicts between teachers and parents, when family and school should be co-responsible for the formation of the individual, helping young people in the pursuit of a healthy sexuality. This paper aims to describe what the parents of elementary school students in the municipal schools of Foz do Iguaçu-PR think about the teaching of sexual education which is proposed by the Health in School Program. The research was responded by 46 parents and / or heads of fifth year elementary students, who were individually interviewed and asked about the concept of Sex and Sexuality; what they think about sex education in school and who they assign the task of sexually educating their children to. The responses were recorded in audio and then transcribed, read, categorized and quantified. Most of the participants were mothers (78,2%). The participants were able to conceptualize Sex (65.1%), but were not safe about the meaning of the term sexuality, characterizing it only as the sexual orientation of a person (30%). They talk with their children mainly about Body Transformations and Body Care (19,3%). They consider it difficult to talk about Sexual Behavior (37%) and it is easy to talk about Sexuality, affection, intimacy (24,2%) and Body Transformations (22,1%). They chose the Family (73,5%) as the main responsible for sexually educating their children and consider it appropriate to talk about the topic between the ages of 10 and 12. They think the school should talk more about STD Prevention and condom use (25,5%) and the family should talk about various contexts of sexuality (24,2%). It was found that it is still necessary to clarify the definition of the basic terms of sex and sexuality among parents. Although they talk to their children about the subject, they restrict the conversations to topics linked to the biological part of the organism, such as the modifications of the body. Although they take responsibility for the sexual education of their children, they agree that the School plays an important role in teaching the theme to children and adolescents. Thus, parents regard sexual education as an issue to be addressed to when teaching sexuality in school.