Imaging future sexuality educators: Attitudes and opinions of student teachers at Sapienza towards sexuality education

Italy has no specific initial teacher training curriculum on Sexuality Education. In undergraduate programs for early childhood and primary school education, topics related to sexuality and its development within the framework of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) are rarely addressed. The Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe assert the need to address such issues within the 0-4 age group. It is considered crucial to provide young people with accurate, age-appropriate, and scientifically accurate information about sexuality and sexual health. This education should be comprehensive, covering various aspects of sexuality, such as families and relationships, respect, consent, bodily autonomy, anatomy, puberty, menstruation, contraception, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, social influences, sexual identity, gender equality, and human rights. In Italy, such training is provided through specific courses that individuals can voluntarily undertake outside university curricula. The main challenge is that these courses come with high costs, making them inaccessible to everyone. And still, to design adequate training, it is necessary to understand the needs of the future recipients. The research, therefore, arose from the question: What were the attitudes and opinions of future educators and teachers in early childhood and primary schools regarding Sexuality Education, both in general and in terms of practical and methodological application within the Italian educational and school system? The objective was to investigate the participants’ perspectives and identify training needs. Existing literature highlights numerous weaknesses in training educational personnel on Sexuality Education. Among the reasons for this lack is the educational responsibility being primarily entrusted to experts external to the school or family context and a still heterogeneous and resistant attitude towards these issues, mainly when addressed with children. In the considered undergraduate programs, there are young adults who, according to research and literature, still rely heavily on internet-based and self-directed learning. The research was an exploratory case study at the Sapienza University of Rome. The sample, expected to consist of at least 300 participants, was drawn from the reference population: 851 students enrolled in undergraduate education and training programs for early childhood and primary education. It involved administering a questionnaire based on international scientific literature concerning the educational needs of the student community and the training needs of teaching and academic staff. The questionnaire had close and open questions and aimed to understand pre-service educators’ and teachers’ perspectives toward Sexuality Education.