Sanja Cesar, Luka Orešković and Christina Zampas

The Fourth Biennial International Sex and Relationships Education Conference. SRE 2009 was hosted in Birmingham on the 7th-9th September, 2009. http://www.sre2009.org. At the conference CESI representative Sanja Cesar presented case study of Croatia during a UNESCO-sponsored symposium. She was also one of the informants/stakeholders interviewed by UNESCO in the process of preparation International Guidelines on Sexuality Education.

SRE 2009 worked in a multidisciplinary way to enable researchers and practitioners to share and discuss their work and ideas. Issues for debate included:

What are we trying to achieve through SRE?

What education theory underpins (or should underpin) good SRE?

What new ways of working have been tried and are they successful?

What can we learn from each other about innovative forms of delivery?

What ideological and/or practical barriers have been encountered and how can they best be challenged and overcome?

Specific themes included faith and culture, rights, the role of parents, life-long learning, pleasure, especially vulnerable groups, modes of delivery and teacher training. Furthermore, during the event an inter-faith forum was organized to consider various approaches and explore some of the barriers to more effective work in the area.

UNESCO is preparing a publication containing examples from countries that have interesting lessons to share as they have attempted to overcome barriers to sexuality education in schools.  The case studies from China, Croatia, Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam and a regional case study for Latin America & the Caribbean will be presented in the publication.