La educación sexual en Uruguay: enfoques en disputa en la genealogía de la política pública

Abstract

This article analyzes the formulation process of the policy of sexual education developed in the Public Educational System in Uruguay during the years 2005–2009. The conceptions on sexuality and gender, the main debates, and the different agents that supported those ideas during the definition of this initiative were studied. The study was qualitative based on interviews and the revision of documents generated by the actors and organisms involved in the process.
The results allow us to affirm that the Sexual Education Program constituted a policy of recognition of the sexual and reproductive rights and the obligations of the State to guarantee the practice of them. The process of formulation of the policy showed power relations among the different actors and the establishment of alliances and strategies to reach the goals proposed. It is evident that the conceptual framework of the program did not correspond to a pure model, but to Hybrids that showed the sociopolitical model and the personal and institutional implications in discussion and that the sexual education was approached from a sanitary approach and of prevention of risks in coexistence with a classic approach of rights and gender that searched to give political and institutional viability to the proposal.