Stockholm university
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Sara Planting-Bergloo

Research projects

Enacting Sex Education

Enacting Sex Education: a practice based study concerning an interdisciplinary knowledge content in Swedish secondary school.

Elever vid sina bänkar i klassrum skrattar och ler tillsammans över något.
Sexuality, consent and relationships in the early years of primary school

This practice-based research project investigates how the knowledge area of sexuality, consent and relationships can be constructed in relation to teaching younger children – 5-13 years old. The purpose of the project is to explore and develop sexuality education and support teachers in their role.

Young students interact in classroom.
UNKA - Teaching About the Nature of Science and Scientific Practices

In the project, we investigate how high school teachers in science education can work to develop teaching about the nature and practices of science. We also take a closer look at how collaboration among high school teachers can contribute to the knowledge base of the teaching profession.

labbodling

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • How materialities and space–time travellings in class can breathe new life into Swedish secondary school Natural Science sexuality education

    2024. Sara Planting-Bergloo, Auli Arvola Orlander. Cultural Studies of Science Education

    Article

    In this study, we investigate the phenomenon of Swedish Natural Science sexuality education. These classes tend to provide factual knowledge, focus on the negative outcomes of sexuality, be heteronormative and include little time for discussion—like much school sexuality education across the world—and this study aims to contribute ideas about new becomings of Natural Science sexuality education. Baradian theorising was used to explore how materialities and space and time travels within the classroom can challenge often-dominant perspectives. Data were produced in a secondary school and consist of teacher-researcher discussions and participatory observations in class. A futuristic case introduced students to spaces, times and materialities that not only helped the group move beyond a medical focus but also made the sexuality education more student centred. The participating teachers suggested imaginary lust-oriented scenarios for the 15–16-year-old students as an entrance to more preventive messages in teaching. A taken-for-granted heterosexual premise was also challenged with gender-neutral words and pronouns, an exercise on how to use both condoms and dental dams, and a time travel into future possibilities for reproduction and parenting. The acknowledgement of spacetimematter intra-activity in teaching thereby enabled new becomings of Swedish Natural Science sexuality education. However, although this study suggests how dominant medical and heterosexual perspectives can be challenged, it also made visible the absence of cultural, religious, asexuality and disability perspectives in Swedish sexuality education.

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  • Becomings of Swedish secondary sexuality education: Enactments in natural science subjects and interdisciplinary teaching about pornography

    2023. Sara Planting-Bergloo.

    Thesis (Doc)

    This thesis is about Swedish secondary sexuality education with a particular focus on the becomings of natural science and pornography education. Recent scrutiny of the knowledge area has stressed the need for teaching to include student perspectives, cover more than mere medical and biological knowledge, and be more affirmative. Accordingly, the main aim of this thesis has been to investigate the becomings of lower and upper secondary sexuality education with a practice-based approach. A second aim has been to explore how the onto-epistemological framing could contribute to new understandings of what sexuality education could be and to make proposals for the teaching and learning of the knowledge area. Here, the theoretical positions offered by Karen Barad and Donna Haraway were used in analysis of teacher and student discussions on various phenomena related to sex and sexuality. The four studies forming the basis of this thesis further build upon engagements with four different schools—two lower and upper secondary settings, respectively. Data were produced through notes and audio recordings where the teachers discussed the construction of sexuality education, or from actual teaching in a class and student interviews. Study I engages with the teaching of genital anatomy and upper secondary students’ notions of virginity. The results suggest that teaching should engage with a variety of perspectives, for example, traditions, norms, and values with regard to virginity. Study II focuses on upper secondary student engagements with contraceptive methods, in particular, the use of hormonal contraception and a mobile phone contraceptive application. The results show the need for teaching to problematise possible side effects of various contraceptive methods, and contraceptive responsibility. Study III breaks with the natural science framing and engages with an interdisciplinary teacher collaboration concerning education about pornography. The topic came into being as somewhat troublesome, having had too great a focus on the teaching, and it is therefore suggested that the topic be part of a wider context addressing gender equality, relationships, sexuality, communication, and consent. Study IV returns to the teaching of natural science sexuality education, but from a more general perspective. In this study, the teachers found ways to invite students to be part of the unfolding of the teaching and to challenge heterosexual and sex-negative premises common in sexuality education in Sweden and worldwide. Overall, in the four studies, sexuality education was enacted as a highly relational and explorative practice. Encounters with primarily the material world, but also time and space, further made teaching more student centred. It is suggested that sexuality education moreover not only be taught as a medical and biological phenomenon, but also in entanglement with perspectives on culture, religion, history, tradition, and societal norms.

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  • Challenging ‘the elephant in the room’: the becomings of pornography education in Swedish secondary school

    2022. Sara Planting-Bergloo, Auli Arvola Orlander. Sex Education

    Article

    This study was conducted among a group of Swedish teachers and a class of 14–15-year-old students and explored pornography education as part of secondary school sexuality education. Data were generated using mixed methods including teacher-researcher meetings, participant observation in class, student interviews, and teacher evaluation meetings, and were documented in the form of audio-recordings and notes. Donna Haraway’s work on string figuring was used to trace the threads constituting pornography education. A four-threaded string figure materialised how Swedish schools’ gender equality stance could provide a sound foundation for engaging with pornographic material. However, a gender-neutral approach to teaching frustrated these aims. The figure also foregrounded how normative societal debate makes it troublesome to acknowledge other than negative perspectives in teaching, problematised the engagement of students and a focus on pornography. Finally, the figure showed a discrepancy between the curriculum’s overall aim and the goals of subject-specific syllabi, making it troublesome to link the topic of pornography to specific school subjects. In summary, pornography education came into being as a complex figure in relation to adolescent sexuality and the school’s mission to provide a form of sexuality education that both problematises gendered sexual scripts and dominant norms with regards to pornography.

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  • Sexualitet och relationer

    2021. Simon Ceder (et al.).

    Book

    Kunskapsområdet sexualitet och relationer skapar engagemang, både i skolan och i samhället. Det är också ett område som ständigt är aktuellt – inte minst då både skola och lärarutbildningar har fått stärkta mål. Denna bok syftar till att stödja lärarna i detta uppdrag.

    Boken beskriver sexualitet och relationer i ett samhälleligt sammanhang och kunskapsområdets historiska utveckling fram till nutid. Dessutom diskuteras både skolövergripande och mer undervisningsnära aspekter samt hur sexualitet och relationer ingår i skolans värdegrunds- och kunskapsuppdrag. Med utgångspunkt i didaktiska frågor om vad, hur och varför undersöks hur kunskapsområdet kan behandlas i den praktiska undervisningen och hur utmaningar kan bemötas. Vidare betonas hur samarbete mellan lärare, elever, elevhälsa och skolledning kan bidra till ett produktivt utforskande av kunskapsområdet.

    Boken riktar sig främst till lärarstudenter men också till verksamma lärare och skolledare inom samtliga årskurser men med tyngdpunkt på grundskolans senare år

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