Abstract
Based on ethnographic observations in two high schools, this paper analyzes how sex educators deploy the neoliberal discourse of personal responsibility in their comprehensive and abstinence-only lessons. I focus not just on the explicit and intended messages of personal responsibility but also the hidden and evaded lessons that are imparted in the classroom. The findings demonstrate that sex educators rely on and reproduce gender, race, class, and sexual inequalities in their lessons in personal responsibility that put forth a version of the good sexual citizen as self-sufficient, self-regulating, and consequence-bearing, what I call the responsible sexual agent. Yet, in their hidden and evaded lessons, sex educators also underscore the extent to which people’s lives are intertwined with and reliant on others, suggesting the discourse of personal responsibility is inadequate for capturing the complexities and realities of people’s intimate lives. The findings point to the importance of examining the translation and negotiation of neoliberal sex education policy at the classroom level.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bernstein, E., & Jakobsen, J. R. (2012/2013). Introduction: gender, justice, and neoliberal transformations. The Scholar & Feminist Online, 11.1–11.2, http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/introduction/.
Bettie, J. (2003). Women without class: Girls, race, and identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Boonstra, H. (2009). Advocates call for a new approach after the era of “abstinence-only” sex education. Guttmacher Policy Review 12, 1, http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/12/1/gpr120106.html.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. R. Nice (Trans.). London: Sage Publications.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and contradictions of economic life. New York: Basic Books.
Brenton, J., & Elliott, S. (2014). Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine. Sociology of Health & Illness, 36(1), 1–34.
Bridges, K. M. (2011). Reproducing race: An ethnography of pregnancy as a site of racialization. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brooks, S. (2012/2013). Beyond marriage and the military: race, gender, and radical sexual politics in the age of neoliberalism. The Scholar & Feminist Online 11.1–11.2, http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/beyond-marriage-and-the-military-race-gender-and-radical-sexual-politics-in-the-age-of-neoliberalism/.
Burns, A., & Torre, M. E. (2004). Shifting desires: discourses of accountability in abstinence-only education in the United States. In A. Harris (Ed.), All about the girl: Culture, power, and identity (pp. 127–137). New York: Routledge.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Cheng, S. (2012/2013). Embodying the sexual limits of neoliberalism. The Scholar & Feminist Online, 11.1–11.2, http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/embodying-the-sexual-limits-of-neoliberalism/.
Collier, A. (2007). The humble little condom: A history. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
Connell, C., & Elliott, S. (2009). Beyond the birds and the bees: Learning inequality through sexuality education. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 4, 83–102.
Duggan, L. (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston: Beacon.
Elliott, S. (2010). Talking to teens about sex: Mothers negotiate resistance, discomfort, and ambivalence. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 7, 310–322.
Elliott, S. (2012). Not my kid: What parents believe about the sex lives of their teenagers. New York: New York University Press.
Elliott, S., & McKelvy, J. N. (2014). Talking sex: Parents, schools, and sexuality. In T. S. Weinberg & S. Newmahr (Eds.), Selves, symbols, and sexualities: An interactionist anthology (pp. 77–88). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Elliott, S., & Umberson, D. (2008). The performance of desire: Gender and sexual negotiation in long-term marriages. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 391–406.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. L., & Shaw, L. L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Espiritu, Y. L. (2001). “We don’t sleep around like white girls do”: family, culture, and gender in Filipina American lives. Signs, 26, 415–440.
Ferguson, A. A. (2001). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Ferguson, R. A. (2012). The reorder of things: The university and its pedagogies of minority difference. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fields, J. (2004). Same-sex marriage, sodomy laws, and the sexual lives of young people. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 1(3), 11–23.
Fields, J. (2005). “Children having children”: race, innocence, and sexuality education. Social Problems, 52, 549–571.
Fields, J. (2008). Risky lessons: Sex education and social inequality. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Fields, J. (2012). Sexuality education in the United States: shared cultural ideals across a political divide. Sociology Compass, 6(1), 1–14.
Fields, J., & Hirschman, C. (2007). Citizenship lessons in abstinence-only sexuality education. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2(2), 3–25.
Fine, M., & McClelland, S. I. (2006). Sexuality education and desire: still missing after all these years. Harvard Educational Review, 76, 297–337.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. A. Sheridan (Trans.). New York: Random House.
Foucault, M. (1979). History of sexuality (Vol. 1.R. Hurley (Trans.)). New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1980). In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Garcia, L. (2009). “Now why do you want to know about that?”: heteronormativity, sexism, and racism in the sexual (mis)education of Latina youth. Gender & Society, 23, 520–541.
Garcia, L. (2012). Respect yourself, protect yourself: Latina girls and sexual identity. New York: New York University Press.
Gavey, N., McPhillips, K., & Doherty, M. (2001). “If it’s not on, it’s not on”—or is it? Discursive constraints on women’s condom use. Gender & Society, 15, 917–934.
Gilbert, J. (2010). Ambivalence only? Sex education in the age of abstinence. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 10(3), 233–237.
Gonzalez-Lopez, G. (2004). Fathering Latina sexualities: Mexican men and the virginity of their daughters. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 1118–1130.
Grzanka, P. R., & Maher, J. (2012). Different like everyone else: stuff white people like and the marketplace of diversity. Symbolic Interaction, 35(3), 368–393.
Hancock, A. M. (2004). The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. New York: New York University Press.
Hays, S. (2003). Flat broke with children: Women in the age of welfare reform. New York: Oxford University Press.
Heath, M. (2012). One marriage under God: The campaign to promote marriage in America. New York: New York University Press.
Heath, M. (2013). Sexual misgivings: producing un/marked knowledge in neoliberal marriage promotion policies. Sociological Quarterly, 54, 561–583.
Irvine, J. (2002). Talk about sex: The battles over sex education in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jones, N. (2010). Between good and ghetto: African American girls and inner-city violence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Kaplan, E. B. (1996). Not our kind of girl: Unraveling the myths of black teenage motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kendall, N. (2008). Sexuality education in an abstinence-only era: a comparative case study of two U.S. states. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 5, 23–44.
Kirby, D. (2002). Do abstinence-only programs delay the initiation of sex among young people and reduce teen pregnancy? Washington, DC: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/data/pdf/abstinence_eval.pdf.
Lesko, N. (2010). Feeling abstinent? Feeling comprehensive? Touching the affects of sexuality curricula. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 10(3), 281–297.
Levine, J. (2013). Ain’t no trust: How bosses, boyfriends, and bureaucrats fail low-income mothers and why it matters. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lofland, J., Snow, D., Anderson, L., & Lofland, L. H. (2006). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth.
Luker, K. (1996). Dubious conceptions: The politics of teenage pregnancy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Luker, K. (2006). When sex goes to school: Warring views on sex—and sex education—since the sixties. New York: Norton.
Martin, K. (1996). Puberty, sexuality, and the self: Boys and girls at adolescence. New York: Routledge.
Melamed, J. (2011). Represent and destroy: Rationalizing violence in the new racial capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Miller, L. J. (2000). The poverty of truth-seeking: postmodernism, discourse analysis and critical feminism. Theory & Psychology, 10(3), 313–352.
Mink, G. (1998). Welfare’s end. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Moore, K. (2012/2013). Fear and fun: science and gender, emotion and embodiment under neoliberalism. The Scholar & Feminist Online, 11.1–11.2, http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/fear-and-fun-science-and-gender-emotion-and-embodiment-under-neoliberalism/.
Moran, J. P. (2000). Teaching sex: The shaping of adolescence in the 20th century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Nathanson, C. A. (1991). Dangerous passage: The social control of sexuality in women’s adolescence. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
National Public Radio, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard Kennedy School of Government Poll.(2004). Sex education in America. Publication no. 7015, January. Retrieved 25 Jul 2005, from http://www.kff.org/newsmedia/7015.cfm.
Pascoe, C. J. (2007). Dude, you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. (1996). Pub. L. No. 104-193, sec. 912, 110 Stat. 2105-2355.
Personal Responsibility Education Program (2010). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Title II Role Of Public Programs, Subtitle L, Maternal and Child Health Services, Title V, Section 2953, Public Law 111-148, 42 U.S.C 713(c)(1). Retrieved on September 17, 2013 from https://www.cfda.gov/?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=e9085baafbd785d09c9e4e52f9ec4ac4.
Ringrose, J. (2007). Successful girls? Complicating post-feminist, neoliberal discourses of educational achievement and gender equality. Gender and Education, 19(4), 471–489.
Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of black and Latino boys. New York: New York University Press.
Solebello, N., & Elliott, S. (2011). “We want them to be as heterosexual as possible”: Fathers talk about their teen children’s sexuality. Gender & Society, 25(3), 293–315.
Tolman, D. L. (2002). Dilemmas of desire: Teenage girls talk about sexuality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Trenholm, C., Devaney, B., Fortson, K., Quay, L., Wheeler, J., & Clark, M. (2008). Impacts of four Title V, section 510 abstinence education programs: final report. Congressional Report by Mathematica Policy Research. http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/welfare/abstinence.asp.
Valocchi, S. (2005). Not yet queer enough: the lessons of queer theory for the sociology of gender and sexuality. Gender & Society, 19(6), 750–770.
Whitehead, C. J. (2012). The nuptial deal: Same-sex marriage and neo-liberal governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilkins, A. (2008). Wannabes, goths, and Christians: The boundaries of sex, style, and status. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilkins, A. (2012). Stigma and status: interracial intimacy and intersectional identities among black college men. Gender & Society, 26(2), 165–189.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Elliott, S. “Who’s to Blame?” Constructing the Responsible Sexual Agent in Neoliberal Sex Education. Sex Res Soc Policy 11, 211–224 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-014-0158-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-014-0158-5