Girls of Color, Sexuality, and Sex Education

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Girls of Color, Sex, and Healthy Sexuality

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 1-13

3. Body Image, Sexy, and Sexualization

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 15-26

4. Respect

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 27-36

5. Girls of Color in Sex Education Classrooms

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 37-52

6. Girls of Color and the Media

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 53-66

7. Recommendations: Working with Girls of Color Around Issues of Sexuality, Sexualization, and Sex Education

   • Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts, Aleksandra Plocha

   Pages 67-76

8. Back Matter

   Pages 77-96

   PDF

This book takes a close look at how girls of color think, talk, and learn about sex and sexual ethics, how they navigate their developing sexuality through cultural stereotypes about sex and body image, and how they negotiate their sexual learning within a co-ed sex education classroom. While girls of color are often pictured as at risk or engaged in risky behavior, the analyses of focus groups and classroom discussions, show not only girls’ vulnerabilities but their strengths as they work with integrating diverse identities, media messages, school policy and history  into their understanding of the sexual world they are exposed to and a part of. 

• Girls of Color
• Race
• Sex
• Sexualization
• Media
• Sex Education

“Girls of Color, Sexuality, and Sex Education successfully accomplishes at least 4 things. With regard to content, it summarizes and critiques how girls of color (especially Black girls) think, talk, and learn about sexuality, by reviewing the extant literature on body image, respect, the sex education classroom, and media through a feminist lens. … Overall, this volume is a welcome addition to the literature on sexuality and sex education and will be of value to students and scholars.” (Michael R. Stevenson, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 62 (6), February, 2017)

“This book offers a resource helpful in understanding the challenges girls of color face in developing sexuality and behaviors as a result of sex education. … this book ishighly recommended as a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of sex education programs in regards to perpetuating stereotypes of African American women rather than the more common tendency to measure effectiveness by sexual activity levels and pregnancy.” (Taylor Fontan, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 46, 2017)

“This academically based but easy-to-read book provides an analysis of sexuality and sex education for girls of color that can be useful in stimulating thought and discussion in any context where sex education takes place … . The book may be particularly important to girls of color, as they consider how their experience may or may not fit the book’s depiction, and it may communicate to them how important their voices are in sexuality debates.” (Donna Marie Castañeda, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Vol. 41 (4), 2017)

• University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, USA

  Sharon Lamb, Tangela Roberts

• University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, USA

  Aleksandra Plocha

Sharon Lamb is Professor of Counseling Psychology at University of Massachusetts Boston, USA.


Tangela Roberts is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling and School Psychology PhD program at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA.  


Aleksandra Plocha is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling and School Psychology PhD program at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA.

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