Events
Public Oral PhD Defense: Vanessa Voller
Comprehensive for Whom? Examining the Politics, Promises, and Paradox of School-Based Comprehensive Sexuality Education in a Rural Community in Eastern Bolivia
Advisor: Joan DeJaeghere
This ethnographically informed research investigates the politics, promises, and paradox of comprehensive sex education (CSE) in addressing the sexual and reproductive health challenges facing young people in one rural community in eastern Bolivia. My inquiry traces the 2023 decision of the Bolivian government to include CSE as part of their national school standards to the 2008 UNAIDS Ministerial Declaration Preventing HIV/AIDS Through Education. I analyze how several leading international development and global health agencies and the Bolivian government have framed CSE as an approach that promises to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health outcomes, expand human rights, and better adolescents' social and economic trajectories. I then compare CSE's believed promise with adolescents' lived realities in one rural community. Through this comparison, I advance two central claims.
First, I argue that teachers and administrators may face significant challenges when implementing the new CSE curriculum. I also contend that high rates of gender-based violence (GBV), limited access to reproductive healthcare, and the normalization of early adolescent pregnancy influence an adolescent girl’s ability to act upon the knowledge and skills gained in CSE. These two claims support the central thesis of this dissertation: Despite its promise, Bolivia’s new school-based CSE curriculum is not sufficiently comprehensive to address the various socio-structural factors that impact adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health in one rural community in eastern Bolivia. To be comprehensive, the Bolivian government must ensure that adolescents experience the right to education, health, and a life free of violence.
206G Burton Hall and Online via Zoom ←
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