Dialogic Teaching: Towards reconfiguring classroom conversations about sexuality

Pedagogy in sexuality education has typically been subject to low-level critique with greater focus on curriculum content. Consequently, pedagogical encounters in sexuality education classrooms are still dominated by ‘transmissive’ styles of teaching, where teachers commonly deliver knowledge which most often secure compliance with group norms and provide educational experiences directed toward some vision of ‘correct’ sexual thought and behaviour. Drawing on the theory and method of Dialogic Teaching by Robin Alexander, this paper engages with debates about the need to reconceptualise the teaching of sexuality education and calls for attention to functions of how patterns of talk may open up space for more robust exploration about the complexities of sexualities. This is a much welcomed model of classroom conversation currently needed to advance a mitigation of ideological conflict endemic to sexuality education today. Using examples of classroom conversations between a teacher and his group of students involved a recent Australian study, in this paper, I demonstrate how dialogic teaching is effective in providing supportive and substantive opportunities for students to explore, challenge, reconsider, extend and enhance their independent learning of the myriad and complex issues relevant to sexuality such as negotiation and consent, pleasure and desire. As a form of pedagogical ethics, dialogic teaching may offer a radical model for the future teaching of sexuality education; greater intertextual classroom discussions which focus on student voices, experiences and sustaining democratic learning cultures, suited for the contours of today’s globalised world.