Scaling up, sustaining, and enhancing school-based sexuality education programs in resource-constrained and conservative contexts: Replicable lessons from positive-deviant countries

Authors

Chandra Mouli, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Michielsen Kristien, University of Leuven, Belgium
Gogoi Aparajita, Centre for Catalyzing Change, India
Nair M, Centre for Catalyzing Change, India
Ziauddin Mohammed, Centre for Catalyzing Change, India
Hadi S, D Aahung, Pakistan
Ijaz A, D Aahung, Pakistan
Rubio Auriolesh, Asociación Mexicana Para La Salud Sexual, Mexico
Marleen Temmerman, Aga Khan UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Department

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Abstract

Despite considerable efforts, progress in the implementationof sexuality education (SE) has been uneven. This study identi-fied six “positive-deviant” low- and middle-income countries,i.e., countries that had scaled up, sustained and enhancedtheir SE programs when many others—in similar social, cul-tural and economic circumstances—were not able to do so. Inother words, they were significantly and consistently moresuccessful than the norm. Countries were shortlisted using avalidated framework and were analyzed using three other vali-dated frameworks on political priority setting, scaling up, andstakeholder engagement. The study found that India, Pakistan,Nigeria, Senegal, Mexico, and Uruguay had scaled up (eithernationwide or in some states/provinces), sustained andenhanced their SE programs in very different contexts. In allsix, SE was a political priority, the national or state/provincelevel SE scale up effort had been carefully planned and man-aged, and a mix of methods were used to build support and/or to overcome resistance. The study points to what needs tobe done better/more energetically/differently in research, pro-gram support-tool development, and policy and program sup-port to change the status quo.

Publication (Name of Journal)

American Journal of Sexuality Education

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/15546128.2024.2377071

Recommended Citation

Mouli, C., Kristien, M., Aparajita, G., M, N., Mohammed, Z., S, H., A, I., Auriolesh, R., Temmerman, M. (2024). Scaling up, sustaining, and enhancing school-based sexuality education programs in resource-constrained and conservative contexts: Replicable lessons from positive-deviant countries. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 1-53.
Available at: https://ecommons.aku.edu/coe-wch/113

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.