Background: Condom education campaigns that aim to prevent early and unintended pregnancies can be undermined by local gender norms, religious edicts and ineffective sexuality education policies. In some schools in Ghana, both condom education and abstinence only education run concurrently.Methods: This study explored community attitudes towards condom education in a context of competing messages about sexuality education. The study adopted a qualitative case study approach involving three schools in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem Municipality of the Central Region of Ghana. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with pupils and educators. They were analysed by (1) template analysis and (2) using the Health Promoting Schools framework, which emphasises links between schools and communities in sexuality education programming.Findings: In the case study schools, condom education was implemented alongside abstinence education through partnerships between schools and the local community. Attitudes varied in the community - with some members rejecting condom education, while others encouraged their daughters into consensual relationships and contraception. The (Methodist) church locally also rejected condom education. The interplay between poverty and gender power relations puts young women at a disadvantage in decision-making about sex, including condom use. Simultaneously, cultural taboos and religious norms limit condom use and place 11- to 15-year-olds at risk of early and unintended pregnancy.Conclusion: Future policy must account for local gender norms, poverty and gender power relations, alongside prevailing religious beliefs that affect sexual health interventions. Unlike the current fragmented picture, a coherent sexuality education framework could effectively address these local factors, leading to better outcomes for sexuality and condom education programmes, with health and educational benefits for young people.

Adolescence represents a vital transitional phase during which young people actively explore and engage with their sexual identity and expression. However, in Sub-Saharan African contexts, such as Ghana, prevailing socio-cultural norms can inhibit the recognition of young people as sexual beings, thereby restricting their ability to engage with their sexuality. It is essential to examine structural interventions, particularly sexual and reproductive health initiatives, to understand how they can better address the challenges within the Ghanaian context, where the conceptualization of young people’s sexuality remains problematic, because socio-cultural norms recognize only adults, and not young people, as sexual beings. This narrative review evaluates existing SRH policies in Ghana and analyzes evidence from schools, communities, and families to discern how young people’s sexuality is perceived. An overview of overarching policies shows a fragmented intersectoral approach, emphasizing an abstinence-based curriculum, while incorporating some elements of comprehensive sexuality education like condom use. Investigation into community, school, and home interventions reveals ambivalent attitudes toward young people’s sexuality, with a mix of acceptance and rejection of their sexuality, moral support for abstinence, and varying views on contraception. Further analysis using the sociology of childhood suggests that the incoherent framework for young people’s sexual and reproductive health, identified through this study’s reviews, is inadequate for a comprehensive understanding of young people’s sexuality. The existing sexual and reproductive health framework may not effectively challenge negative cultural norms and socio-cultural contexts that sustain the perception of young people as asexual beings. Therefore, implementing existing structural interventions within a comprehensive sexuality education framework is crucial to effectively tackle negative cultural norms and the contexts that marginalize young people’s sexuality.

Is it helpful to share feminist theory with youth practitioners and is there room for it on short training courses such as in EU Action Projects? Can theoretical work on intersectionality, and the concept of gender-related violence (GRV) which grew from it, be shared in training interventions with professionals who work with children and young people? This article is based on the findings of the EU co-funded GAP Work Project that sought to improve GRV intervention and referral through training for practitioners in everyday (rather than specialist) contact with children or young people in four countries. Summarising how the project worked, and how theory informed it, including a brief account of how the concept of GRV worked in practice, guides the selection of material from the wider Project Final Report and offers a reflection on how educators used theory in the training, sometimes explicitly in the sessions. It therefore contributes our experiences to discussions about the design and implementation of education and training about violence and abuse. It concludes by sharing resources for designing and implementing training on sexual harassment, violence and hate crime, including from other recent projects that offer resources for incorporating an intersectional perspective when developing local government plans, programmes, and projects.

This paper explains the logic for using the concept of gender-related violence (GRV) as a broad category that problematises homophobia, transphobia and the policing of gender norms and the gender binary, as well as gender-based violence—understood as primarily violence against women and girls (VAWG). It then evaluates the utility of this concept and its capacity to introduce theoretical refinement to the study of gendered violence, by reviewing its reception within a large international feminist project on gendered violence in the lives of children and young people. The aim of this study was to improve knowledge and understanding of forms of violence and discrimination among practitioners who have everyday contact with general populations of children and young people. It sought to improve their ability to identify and challenge sexist, sexualising, homophobic or transphobic language or behaviour, and their knowledge of how and when to refer children and young people to appropriate support. The paper reports my view of the contribution that the concept of gender-related violence made in each of the four project sites: Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK. The findings are mixed: in Spain and the UK the concept seemed helpful, but in Italy and Ireland it was initially expected to be helpful but, in practice, a conceptualisation closer to gender-based violence plus homophobia was employed. It is tentatively concluded that where LGBTQIA+ rights were well-established as well as the problematisation of VAWG, this framework was successful, but that it was less successful in more heteronormative sites where homophobia was less problematised. It is suggested that, as a concept, GRV can make a valuable intervention in sites like the former.

Conventionally, scientific research has been regarded as a human activity or practice. This has marginalised the part that other matter plays in the research endeavour. The more-than-human ontology of the new materialisms de-privileges human agency, focusing instead upon how assemblages of the animate and inanimate together produce the world. This has fundamental implications for social inquiry methodology and methods. Here, we use this post-anthropocentric perspective to re-think research as more-than-human engagements, in which multiple materialities contribute to the production of research findings, outputs and knowledge. The research assemblage comprises not only human elements such as researcher, respondents and audience, but also research tools, data, contexts and material outputs. Using the ethological new materialist toolkit of Gilles Deleuze, we use the concepts of affects, assemblages and micropolitics to make sense of social inquiry, and also to address issues of validity. We use this understanding to explore the more-than-human micropolitics of the research process, before assessing how this more-than-human perspective on research challenges representationalism, and moves beyond both a realist and a constructionist model of research epistemology. We conclude by considering the implications for the practical endeavour of social inquiry, and offer a framework for more-than-human social inquiry methodology and methods.

Abstract Background: Condom education campaigns that aim to prevent early and unintended pregnancies (EUPs) can be undermined by local gender norms, religious edicts, and ineffective sex education policies. This study explored community attitudes towards condom education in the context of either comprehensive sexuality education or abstinence forms of sex education in three schools in Ghana. Methods: The study adopted a qualitative case study approach informed by in-depth interviews with programme managers and students. Findings: Findings show that condom education is implemented alongside abstinence education through partnerships between the school and the community. The community largely rejected condom education, while some parents encouraged their daughters into consensual relationships and contraception. The church also rejected condom education, contradicting parental encouragement for contraception use for young women in consensual relationships. The interplay between poverty and gendered power dynamics puts young women at a disadvantage in decision-making on sexual practice condom use. At the same time, cultural taboos and religious norms limit condom use and put 11-15-year-olds at risk of early and unintended pregnancy (EUPs). Conclusion:It is essential to recognise the impact that local gender, cultural and religious norms have in shaping how sexual health education is delivered and how sexual health outcomes are produced.

Sociology of Health & IllnessVolume 45, Issue 4 p. 937-939 BOOK REVIEW Sexual citizens: A landmark study of sex, power and assault on campus. By Jennifer A. Hirsch and Shamus Khan, New York: Norton and Company. 2023. 45( 4), 395 pages. ISBN: 9781324001706 (hbk); £19.47 (hbk); £13.62 (pbk). ISBN: 9780393541335 (pbk) Chloe Roesch, Corresponding Author Chloe Roesch [email protected] Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK Correspondence Chloe Roesch, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorPam Alldred, Pam Alldred Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UKSearch for more papers by this author Chloe Roesch, Corresponding Author Chloe Roesch [email protected] Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK Correspondence Chloe Roesch, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorPam Alldred, Pam Alldred Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 January 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13596Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. REFERENCES Alldred, P., & Phipps, A. (2018). Training to respond to sexual violence at European universities: Final report of the USVreact project. www.USVreact.eu Phipps, A., & Smith, G. (2012). Violence against women students in the UK: Time to take action. Gender and Education, 24(4), 357– 373. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2011.628928 Volume45, Issue4May 2023Pages 937-939 ReferencesRelatedInformation

This article offers a critical assessment of the challenges for policy- and practice-oriented social research of ‘diffractive methodology’ (DM): a post-representational approach to data analysis gaining interest among social researchers. Diffractive analyses read data from empirical research alongside other materials – including researchers’ perspectives, memories, experiences, and emotions – to provide novel insights on events. While this analytical approach acknowledges the situatedness of all research data, it raises issues concerning the applicability of findings for policy or practice. In addition, it does not elucidate in what ways and to what extent the diffractions employed during analysis have influenced the findings. To explore these questions, we diffract DM itself, by reading it alongside a DeleuzoGuattarian analysis of research-as-assemblage. This supplies a richer understanding of the entanglements between research and its subject-matter, and suggests how diffractive analysis may be used in conjunction with other methods in practice- and policy-oriented research.

Background International Students account for >20% of university students in the UK. Preliminary research from Australia suggests International Students experience disparate access to Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) care in host countries. Difficulties exist, however, when translating findings to the UK context due to different International Student demographics and healthcare systems. This research therefore investigates SRH access, outcomes and quality of care in International Students studying in the UK. Methods An online survey was completed by 900 students (405 International and 495 Domestic Students) from 4 East Midlands universities. Participants answered questions regarding: (i) knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards accessing SRH services in the UK; (ii) any barriers faced accessing these, and; (iii) when, where, how and by whom should information on SRH be delivered. Results Whilst analysis is currently ongoing, preliminary results indicate that International Students experience greater difficulty accessing SRH care than domestic student counterparts. Specifically, International Students are: • Less likely to be confident accessing SRH care in UK vs. home country, • Substantially less likely to understand their rights to confidentiality when accessing UK SRH services • Demonstrate broadly similar SRH knowledge compared with domestic students. Discussion These findings illustrate that, while International Students have broadly comparable levels of SRH knowledge to Domestic Students, clear differences exist with respect to knowledge about accessing SRH services in UK. These results contribute novel insight into how and when in the immigration process International Students should receive SRH information/resources— and the roles of university and healthcare services in delivering these.

This article sets out a more-than-human framework within which to explore the contribution of non-human matter to social inequality. Applying an approach based in Deleuzian ethology, we extend three invitations: to address the multiplicity and fluidity of dis/advantage, to explore its production in everyday interactions, and to acknowledge non-human as well as human matter in the emergence of dis/advantage. The article examines how the interactions between human and non-human matter produce and reproduce context-specific bodily capacities and incapacities, and consequently ‘a thousand tiny dis/advantages’. These dis/advantages may accumulate to produce substantive inequalities and social divisions. An illustrative re-reading of Paul Willis’s 1970s study of the cultural reproduction of social inequality Learning to Labour reveals the complex ways in which daily encounters between human and non-human matter produce both transient and lasting dis/advantage. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this more-than-human perspective for the sociological study of inequality.

This paper assesses how a new materialist ontology can inform the sociological study of gender-related violence (GRV). The new materialisms are relational rather than essentialist; post-anthropocentric as opposed to humanist; and replace dualisms such as agency/structure, reason/emotion and micro/macro with a monist or ‘flat’ ontology. To make sense of GRV from within this ontology, we explore violence as assemblages of human and non-human matter and draw upon the DeleuzoGuattarian micropolitical concepts of ‘the war machine’ and ‘lines of flight’. While violence may supply a protagonist with new capacities (a line of flight), it typically closes down or constrains the capacities of one or more other parties in a violence-assemblage. This theoretical exploration establishes the basis for a methodological approach to studying GRV empirically, using a Deleuzian toolkit of affects, assemblages, capacities and micropolitics. The paper concludes with an assessment of what is gained from this new materialist ontology of GRV.

Youth workers are on the front line for supporting children and young people with the violence some of them face. However, education and training for this part of the role seemed lacking in our experience as a Youth and Community Worker and a Youth and Community Work Lecturer in the UK. An international project that sought to address this educational gap for ‘youth practitioners’ had a UK arm, which is the context for this article. This project created a three-day training course that sought to improve responses to gender-related violence (GRV) by increasing awareness, improving knowledge about providing support and making referrals, and also sought to prevent or reduce gender-related violence by challenging the inequalities on which it rests. The UK ‘youth practitioners’ who attended the training wrote almost 500 ‘action plans’—plans to act on the basis of the training, and analysis of these offers an indication of their concerns and priorities. Here, we present the concerns that UK-based teachers and youth workers had for the children and young people they worked with, and the forms of violence they were aware of when they began this training course. We then describe the interventions with young people or changes to their practice that these attendees said they would make in response to the training once they were back at work. This provides an agenda for action in youth, education and social services to address gender-related violence in the lives of children and young people in the UK. By the end of the training, the interventions they had committed to making included changes to their own practice, showing their reflexivity and their understanding that key tools for tackling gender-related violence included their own behaviour and reflexive practice in their service or team. They highlighted the need for culture change at an organisational level, and identified the problems of sexism and homophobia, even in their own workplaces. Their views about the value of the term gender-related violence (GRV) were mixed, with some practitioners finding it unnecessarily theoretical and others finding it a helpful link between areas of discrimination and of violence that they tended to tackle separately, such as between homophobia and violence against women and girls.

As Youth and Community Work courses in Higher Education dwindle across the UK, following years of austerity and cuts to Youth Services, the diverse pedagogies of informal education are more needed than ever [...]

Background Transgender people can face discrimination which can be reflected in and encoded by their occupational experiences. There is emerging research regarding those who are transgender but experiences of non-binary people remain under-explored. Purpose This study considered the occupational experiences of transgender and non-binary people and how gender expression related to engagement in occupations and space. Method Five transgender and non-binary people participated in repeat interviews, including a 'walking interview'. Analysis was informed by new materialism. Findings Occupational engagement can re-enforce binary understandings of gender or facilitate creative expressions of gender identity. Within normative environments, occupational participation can offer assimilation, particularly for non-binary people. Some occupations provided emancipation from binary gender norms through expression such as clothing and creative activities which provided recognition and belonging. Symbolic and personal meanings of occupations shifted when participants were able to express themselves in a way that felt authentic. Conclusion 'Occupational assimilation' can bring safety from scrutiny for those who are transgender and non-binary but curtails authentic expression. Occupational therapists have a role in supporting transgender and non-binary people in accessing occupations which facilitate their authentic gender expression and need to improve critical awareness of the culturally encoded binary nature of many occupations and environments.

Sexuality is one of the most regulated and controversial aspects of human behavior and social organization, and has been subject to societal, religious, and cultural norms, taboos, and laws, often addressing male and female sexualities differently. Sociologically, human sexualities are considered both “natural” and “cultural”; as a consequence, they are diverse, labile, and emergent. Sexualities have been studied from interactionist, poststructuralist, feminist, queer, and materialist theoretical perspectives. Studies have addressed the behaviors, subjectivities, orientations, experiences, and cultural transgressions associated with sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure. This research has explored the breadth and diversity of sexualities and sexual subcultures, and documented the ways that – both historically and cross‐culturally – societies and cultures have influenced sexual identities and experiences; how sociocultural forces discriminate against non‐normative sexualities; and how these forces have been resisted and transgressed.

University students tend to have greater sexual health knowledge than the general public, yet condom use among this group continues to be a public health concern because effective condom use could reduce sexually transmitted infections and, for heterosexual women, unwanted pregnancies. We report findings from a small, qualitative study of condom use among sexually active heterosexual university students in the UK. In interviews, students shared their views about condom use and sometimes their personal experiences too. This paper identifies some of the meanings attributed to condom use in the accounts of nine heterosexually active 20–25 year-olds. Participants explained that when they felt comfortable communicating with their partners, they were more likely to use condoms, and those with negative sexual experiences or under social or psychological pressure were less likely to use them. The findings highlight issues of trust and power between men and women in heterosexual relationships, and describe contexts for dishonest sexual practice, including the traditional notions of femininity that were linked to condom use by this group. The issue of stealthing arose in one woman’s account of her experience and in several others’ reports of what occurs commonly. Stealthing, the secretive removal of a condom by a (usually male) partner during sexual intercourse without a partner’s knowledge or permission, produces non-consensual unprotected sex. We present stealthing as a product of the sexual double-standards described and as a form of interpersonal violence (IPV) and, among these heterosexual partners, as a form of gender-based violence. This study provides a glimpse into university students’ decision-making regarding condom use and highlights how gendered inequalities shape heterosex, in particular, communication about safer sex, that in some cases, compromise women’s decisions about (safer) sex.

In this chapter we apply a new materialist ontology to issues of citizenship. We argue that instead of considering citizenship as a status to be acquired, lost or refused by an individual, it is an emergent and relational capacity. This capacity is produced and reproduced in everyday material interactions, across a spectrum of activities from work to lifestyle practices. To illustrate this shift, we examine one example of such a material interaction: the engagements that young people have with sexualities education. Using data from two studies of sexualities education, we assess how the capacities produced during sexualities education interactions – such as a capacity to express specific sexual desires or to manage fertility proactively – contribute to the 'becoming-citizen' of young people. We conclude by suggesting how this bottom-up, posthuman model of citizenship as becoming can assist social work theory and practice: by re-thinking agency, and by acknowledging the differential access to resources and opportunities experienced by those of different genders, ethnicities, sexualities, classes and nationalities.

With growing social science interest in new materialist and posthuman ontologies, it is timely to explore how these may translate practically into social research methodologies. This task is complicated by differing interpretations of how new materialist precepts should shape research. This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by setting out a methodology using one specific thread within the new materialisms: Deleuzian 'ethology'. Inspired by Spinoza's Ethics, Deleuze established a conceptual toolkit for ethological inquiry, comprising 'relation', 'assemblage', 'affect' and 'capacity'. We show how this toolkit translates into a design for analysing empirical data. Effective data analysis also depends on the adequacy and appropriateness of earlier stages in the research process. We therefore also consider an ethological approach to setting a research question, choosing data collection methods and presenting study findings. We conclude with some reflections on the challenges of translating philosophical theory into social science methodology.