Reflections of Community Engagement Activity on Sex Education, Sexual Consent and Awareness among High School Learners in the Mpumalanga Province

Abstract

Consent related topics in sexual education seem to be avoided or considered taboo among learners in rural communities. The study explores the perceptions of sexual awareness, consent and sexual knowledge among high school learners in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. Two theories of social constructionism and person in the environment were used as lenses to understand sex education in relation to issues of consent. A focused ethnography approach was employed to reconnoitre the perceptions of learners on sexual awareness and sexual consent, and a purposive sample was implored to select learners involved in the study. The study used two focus groups of twenty boys and eleven girls from Grades 11 and 12. The study emanates from the reflective essays penned by ten participants from the University of South Africa, who played a role in facilitating discussions among Grades 11 and 12 learners as part of their community engagement. The study revealed that although sex education is taught at school, issues of sexual consent are lacking, and learners have no knowledge of what consent entails. Furthermore, the results revealed that the effects of sex education in the curriculum are minimal, and there should be more learning activities to promote sex education in schools.