Let’s Talk about Sex...uality, Consent and Relationships: Teachers’ Views on and Approaches towards Teaching Sexuality, Consent and Relationships in the English Classroom

Abstract: In recent years, it has been reported that sex education in Swedish schools has been lacking, and, thus, in 2022, new guidelines for sex education were implemented (sexuality consent and relationships, SCaR). This change meant that sex education is part of all curricula and that the responsibility to teach it rests on teachers of all subjects. With the theory of language as reproducing and changing values as a background, this study aimed to investigate teachers of English’s views and approaches towards the increased responsibility to teach SCaR in the English classroom. Semi-structured interviews were used to study six EFL teachers and the data was analysed with the support of Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. The interviews showed that the participants worked differently with SCaR, from pre-planned lessons to catching students’ questions in the moment to managing offensive language. The teachers emphasised that SCaR comes naturally to English and while all teachers found it important to teach SCaR, not all teachers were comfortable doing it. In conclusion, SCaR is relatively easy to integrate with the English syllabus, while not as easy to teach in practice. Furthermore, more materials, time, and support for all teachers is needed to implement the new guidelines entirely.