Youth Perceptions and Experiences of Sex Education

Dear Colleagues,

Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) is one of the main spaces where young people encounter formal and informal messages about gender, bodies, sexuality, and relationships. However, RSE remains influenced by powerful political, structural, and discursive forces that shape young people’s access to and experience of it in ways deeply influenced by their local and national contexts. Long dominated by risk-focused, biology-oriented approaches, RSE often overlooks the complexity of young people’s sexual subjectivities, relationships, and lived realities, as well as how gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, and digital cultures intersect with these experiences. Contemporary shifts, including feminist movements such as #MeToo, a growing awareness of the diversity of sexual and gender identities, and the influence of digital technologies, have highlighted the need for new models that move beyond the ‘adult-expert/child-passive’ paradigm. Holistic, youth-centred approaches rooted in mutual dialogue and the critical deconstruction of norms can better respond to the political and structural terrains that young people navigate, recognising them as active partners in shaping their sexual health, relationships, and education.

For this Special Issue, we invite contributions where young people play an active role in interpreting, negotiating, and reshaping RSE content and practices. We welcome research that explores how RSE intersects with power, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, disability, and location. Contributions may address formal and informal RSE (schools, online spaces, peer-led initiatives), innovative methods for researching youth perspectives, or new conceptual approaches that centre young people’s embodied experiences.

Dr. Claire Meehan
Dr. Emily Setty
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Youth is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sex education
• gender
• sexualities
• peer-led
• youth-led
• digital cultures
• digital intimacies