The research project examines the processes through which sexual knowledge is selected, legitimised, and transformed into educational knowledge within the Italian school context.

The study is grounded in a theoretical framework that conceptualises sexuality as a historically situated sociocultural construct, whose meanings emerge through the interaction between individual experiences, social relations, and institutions (Gagnon & Simon, 1973/2005, 1986; Mottier, 2008; Weeks, 2023). From this perspective, sexual knowledge is not regarded as a neutral and universally defined body of information, but rather as the outcome of social processes through which different meanings and interpretative frameworks are produced and certain forms of knowledge acquire greater recognition and authority than others (Berger & Luckmann, 1966/1997; Foucault, 1976/2013; Plummer, 1975, 1995, 2015).

In particular, the project introduces the concept of pedagogically legitimate sexual knowledge, understood as the configuration of knowledge about sexuality that, within specific historical, social, and institutional conditions, is recognised as appropriate for educational transmission. Transforming sexuality into an object of teaching entails processes of selection and reorganisation of available knowledge, as well as the definition of what can be taught, the ways in which it can be transmitted, the aims attributed to educational interventions, and the positions of the actors involved (Bernstein, 1996).

From this perspective, the research approaches sexuality education not simply as a set of programmes or educational interventions, but as a field in which different conceptions of sexuality, education, the subject, and educational authority encounter and confront one another. The definition of what is considered appropriate to teach about sexuality is therefore also understood as a terrain of negotiation and contestation among actors who hold different conceptions of education and the social order (Rubin, 1984/2011; Seidman, 2015).

The general objective of the research is to reconstruct how sexual knowledge is defined, legitimised, and reworked as educational knowledge in the Italian context, by examining the relationship between international standards, the proposals developed by organisations external to schools, and the experiences that take shape within school settings.

The study adopts a qualitatively driven mixed-methods design, in which quantitative, lexicometric, and qualitative tools are integrated across four interconnected empirical phases. The quantitative and lexicometric components primarily serve descriptive and exploratory purposes and are integrated with qualitative analysis in the interpretation of the processes under investigation (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011; Hesse-Biber, 2010).

The first phase analyses some of the main international standards on sexuality education developed by international and supranational organisations. Its aim is to understand how these documents define sexuality as an educational object and through which processes they legitimise specific contents, aims, and modes of teaching. The analysis combines a mapping of the institutional actors and forms of expertise involved in the production of these standards, descriptive text-mining techniques, and qualitative content analysis.

The second phase shifts the focus to the ways in which sexuality education is concretely designed in Italy by organisations external to schools. The study analyses projects promoted, among others, by public health institutions, Third Sector organisations, and private actors. An initial lexicometric analysis explores the discursive repertoires through which these projects publicly present sexuality education and define its topics, objectives, and target groups. This analysis is subsequently deepened through semi-structured interviews with project representatives selected according to maximum-variation criteria. The comparison is aimed at reconstructing the main configurations of sexuality education emerging in the Italian context.

The third phase focuses on the role of schools as spaces of mediation. The study is conducted in upper secondary schools in the Metropolitan City of Naples, in Southern Italy, and examines how school contexts facilitate, filter, or limit the presence of sexual knowledge within everyday school life. Schools are considered one of the spaces in which meanings related to sexuality and gender are transmitted, reproduced, made visible, and potentially reworked (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Rinaldi, 2016; Youdell, 2004). Through engagement with teaching staff, particular attention is devoted to the organisational and cultural conditions that make the introduction of specific topics possible, to the processes through which educational interventions and experts are selected, and to the negotiations involving schools, families, and other actors.

The fourth phase is devoted to the perspectives of students. Its objective is to understand how knowledge about sexuality circulating within school contexts is interpreted, selected, and reworked by the recipients of educational interventions. This phase makes it possible to connect processes of knowledge production and mediation with the meanings that students attribute to their educational experiences, while also considering the relationship between school and the other sources through which they acquire information and interpretations concerning sexuality.

Taken together, the four phases make it possible to trace the processes of production and transformation of sexual knowledge across different levels: from its formalisation within international standards to the design of educational interventions, from their mediation within school contexts to the reworking of knowledge by students.

The project is situated within the broader fields of the sociology of sexuality, the sociology of education, and studies on the social production of knowledge.

The Italian context represents a particularly significant case for analysis, as it is characterised by a weak curricular institutionalisation of sexuality education and considerable heterogeneity in the interventions implemented in schools. Within this context, external organisations play an important role in the design and delivery of educational activities, while individual schools participate in the selection of projects, contents, and the experts involved.

The aim of the research is therefore not to determine which model of sexuality education should be preferred, but rather to reconstruct sociologically how specific forms of knowledge acquire the status of knowledge considered appropriate for educational transmission, through which forms of authority they are legitimised, and how they are subsequently transformed as they move across different institutional levels and educational contexts.

In this way, the research seeks to contribute to the understanding of sexuality education as a social and institutional process of knowledge production, selection, legitimisation, and negotiation.

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Giuliano Flagiello
PhD Candidate in Social and Statistical Sciences
Department of Social Sciences
University of Naples Federico II
E-mail: giuliano.flagiello@unina.it