A “discourse of the pinks and blues”: some arguments for the visibility of gender in the PSHE curriculum

Observes that the existence, experience and implications of gender are often ignored in sex education in school, and argues that the given sex and learned gender of young people must be taken into account if their sex education needs are to be addressed. Summarizes the gendered messages which boys and girls receive even before formal sex education begins, the messages about gender contained in sex education resources, and those implicit in the school’s hidden curriculum. Highlights ways in which schools can take more account of gender issues in their curricula on personal, social and health education. Challenges the orthodoxy that sex education should always be taught in mixed groups.