Sexuality-related questions and behaviours in early childhood often place preschool teachers in a difficult professional position, particularly in contexts where sexuality education is weakly institutionalised and publicly contested. This article examines how Polish preschool teachers describe and negotiate professional responsibility when responding to sexuality-related situations in everyday preschool practice. The study draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 preschool teachers and uses thematic analysis to reveal how familiar tensions documented in sexuality education research - moral protectionism, avoidance, delegation of responsibility, and cautious engagement - are configured in the Polish preschool context. The findings show that teachers' accounts were organised around four recurrent positionings: the Moral Guardian, the Withdrawn Teacher, the Responsibility-Shifting Teacher and the Cautious Professional. These positionings were not fixed individual categories but interpretive resources through which teachers negotiated uncertainty, anticipated parental scrutiny, and perceived institutional ambiguity and responsibility for children's safety and wellbeing. In Poland, professional responsibility for sexuality-related issues was described as simultaneously expected and insufficiently legitimised. The study contributes a Central and Eastern European account of negotiated teacher responsibility and highlights the need for clearer institutional guidance, teacher preparation and shared organisational responsibility in early childhood settings.
Individuals with intellectual disabilities face entrenched systemic and cultural barriers to sexual expression, often exacerbated in Chinese contexts by values of 'face' and 'familism'. While artificial intelligence and humanoid sex robots emerge as potential interventions, their ethical and practical viability within disability services remains contested. This study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore the perspectives of 12 Chinese social workers regarding the integration of AI-powered intimate technologies. Findings reveal four major themes: systemic barriers to romantic agency, the perceived benefits of 'risk-free' simulated intimacy, ethical concerns regarding relational authenticity, and societal reflections on the 'eternal child' syndrome. Practitioners recognised robots as tools to bypass parental opposition and institutional liability by eliminating risks of pregnancy and exploitation. However, a critical tension emerged: whether these technologies genuinely empower users or serve as a 'techno-fix' to hide disabled sexuality from the neurotypical public. The results highlight a 'double standard of readiness', where cognitive competence is used to gatekeep human rights. We argue for a multidisciplinary governance framework that prioritises 'techno-social' literacy and challenges the sexual ableism inherent in current service models.
The experiences of trans and gender diverse adults and adolescents remain marginalised in the literature on menstruation in school and post-school education. Drawing on nine qualitative in-depth interviews, this paper explores trans and gender diverse students' perspectives and experiences of menstruation in an Australian school and post-school education context, including their engagement with informal information-seeking practices. Participants reported that menses and menstruation increased their gender dysphoria, and often sought to obtain menstrual suppression. Menstruation education was reported to be (for the most part) cisnormative and occurred across three main sites: school-based relationships and sex(ualities) education classes, online, and at home. Participants reported experiencing a range of menstruation-related disruptions to their education, and education institutions were often described as lacking sufficient support for menstruating students. Lack of access to appropriate toilet facilities presented a significant barrier for participants and sometimes resulted in interviewees using gender-segregated bathrooms incongruent with their gender or being forced to dispose of menstrual products at home. Using Persdotter's conceptualisation of the 'menstrunormate', this paper argues that Australian education institutions must re-consider their menstruation-related curriculum and practice to ensure trans and gender diverse students receive equitable access to information, resources, and care.
Despite international efforts to prevent adolescent pregnancy, research on adolescent fatherhood is scarce, especially in developing countries. Adolescent birth rates in the Philippines remain among the highest in Southeast Asia, yet the factors driving it are poorly understood, leaving a significant gap in sexual and reproductive health policy. This study aimed to determine the national prevalence and identify the structural, behavioural and cognitive correlates of early fatherhood among Filipino young men aged 15-19 years. Using data from the 2021 Young Adults Fertility and Sexuality Study (YAFS5), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Filipino youth, we performed weighted hierarchical multinomial logistic regression using a two-stage model-building approach. Results show that 11.9% of sexually experienced Filipino adolescents had become fathers before the age of 20. Recent fatherhood was significantly associated with employment history, and awareness of AIDS or STIs, while current school enrolment, lifetime multiple sexual partners, and modern contraceptive use were associated with lower odds of paternity. This study is the first to provide data on the national prevalence of early fatherhood in the Philippines and the Western Pacific region. Findings underscore the need for policies and programmes addressing the reproductive health of young men.
