Sexuality, sexuality education, and teaching about sexuality are inherently feminist topics. There is a way in which to teach sexuality education that deconstructs dominant power structures, empowers students, and that has life-long positive impacts upon the young people in the classroom. In short, utilizing a feminist pedagogy is extremely important when teaching about sex, sexuality, and sexual health. Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) placed an abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum, Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education, on a list of endorsed curriculum with evidence-based comprehensive or abstinence-plus sexuality education curriculum. Much has been written about the false information in Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education. However, less has been written about the gendered implications of this curriculum and what a curriculum such as this means in the context of feminist pedagogy. My project will not just focus on a gendered reading of Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education using an intersectional approach, but will also examine the ways in a curriculum such as Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education works against feminist pedagogies in dangerous ways. The theories I believe will be most pertinent to my project and will inform and frame this paper include Nel Nodding’s ethic of care, as well as, bell hooks’ theories on feminist pedagogy, engaged pedagogy, and critical thinking. Through a review of the popular literature around Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education, the Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education curriculum itself, and theoretical texts I hope to achieve a more nuanced critique of this curriculum and its implications for the students it is taught to when it comes to important identity categories, with special regard to gender, but at once not leaving out race, class and sexual orientation, as well as in the context of education and the impact that a curriculum such as this can have on the learning outcomes and future learning of students when it comes to sexuality.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Women's and Gender Studies
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TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_5170
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Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
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application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
v, 105 p.
Note (type = degree)
M.A.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Kaitlyn Wojtowicz
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Feminist theory--United States
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Sex instruction--United States
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Sexual abstinence--United States
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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License
Name
Author Agreement License
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I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.