Originally published in 1993. This book takes the reader inside the contested issue of sex education by examining how a sexuality curriculum is actually taught to a ninth-grade health class and how it impacts on both the teacher and students.

Drawing on observations and interviews with teachers, students, and other school personnel to capture the complexity and tension of lived classroom culture, this volume illustrates the dynamic, complex, and sometimes contradictory processes by which traditional versions of appropriate sexual behaviour and gender relations are legitimated as...