The role of school librarian in the sexual education of teenagers

MILLE, Fanny, RACAULT, Marlène and WENZ-GUGLIELMI, Manon (2019) The role of school librarian in the sexual education of teenagers. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 113c - IFLA Poster Session.

Bookmark or cite this item: https://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2758
[img]
Preview
Language: English (Original)
Available under licence Creative Commons Attribution.

Abstract

The role of school librarian in the sexual education of teenagers

With the increasing ease of access to sexual content on the internet, the sexual education of teens is becoming more than ever an important issue. In France, sexual education has been included in school’s curriculum since 2001 and the school librarian plays an important role in informing and raising students’ awareness on many topics, including sexuality. We believe that every librarian working in a school or public library can be a part of this education as they are often able to provide a type of sexual education more informative, modern and less conservative than teachers. This new approach may help to enhance the well-being of young people about their health, their relationship with their bodies and with other people. This type of education can also promote equality between sexes and reduce gendered-base discrimination. Furthermore, these types of actions are in line with the educative capacity of librarians in general and are in accordance with the sustainable development goals supported by the UN. Through this exploratory study, we met with librarians in order to understand how they view their role concerning sexual education, how they perceive the impact that they can make and how they use their actions to establish a positive dialog about sexuality. Our poster restores the results of this inquiry, focused on French librarians, and presents the irregular results of their practices. Those results were presented to underline the importance of actions in favor of sexual education in libraries, but also to encourage professionals to question their own practices in regards to this topic. During the congress we have sustained thorough discussions with other professionals, allowing us to sustain a broader reflection on the subject, enriched by the different cultural perspectives given by the people we have spoken with.

FOR IFLA HQ (login required)

Edit item Edit item
.