The new Visiting Research Fellow at Soc&kom, Anna Bredström, presents her research about the challeges for an anti-racist sex education.
Soc&kom’s Visiting Research Fellow Dr Anna Bredström (Linköping University) explores issues related to sexual health, primary health care and medicine. She is particularly interested in the border between nature and culture, feminist intersectionality theory, and how “race” and ethnicity are constructed in medical research and practice.
Bredström’s presentation at Soc&koms Research Café builds upon a critical reading of recently published sex educational materials that aspire to a ‘norm critical’ agenda, i.e. that explicitly seeks to challenge norms regarding gender, sexuality, able-bodiness, race and ethnicity. She examines how race and ethnicity are articulated in the materials, with a particular focus on how concepts such as ‘values’, culture and faith are linked to different categories of difference.
She is particularly interested in the ways the materials attempt to move beyond notions of immutable cultural differences and avoid cultural racism. However, she argues that while they may avoid reproducing stereotypes, they fail in addressing any alternative way of conceptualizing culture and its importance for sexuality. A more fruitful alternative would be to turn to critical multiculturalism to develop a sex education that is both norm critical and culturally sensitive.
The event is in English.
Welcome for coffee and discussion!
Tuesday, March 28th 2017, at 14.15, room 219, Soc&kom, Snellmaninkatu 12, Helsinki