Sexo e Camisinhas…sex and condoms.

I am less than a week into the 5 week Independent Research Project (ISP) component of my program. This is the final stage of the program and what we have all been building towards. After numerous hours spent researching, drafting and polishing proposals the time has finally come to do our primary research. We are all on our own now and have these 5 weeks to perform research and create a 40 page thesis paper on our topic that is related to public health in Brazil. Ready go!

Two excerpts from my final research proposal:

The founding question for this ISP is what are the understandings of sexual behavior and sexual health amongst 15-18 year old students of public schools in Salvador and where do they gather this knowledge from? More specifically, this ISP will investigate and analyze what knowledge adolescents are gaining from the PSE program in school, their peers, the media, and their families in respect to sexual contraceptives. This project will evaluate these four sources of sexual education to better understand adolescent knowledge of contraceptives, contraceptive use, and sexual health.

The purpose in conducting this research project is to understand where students are gaining their knowledge and understandings of sexual health education and sexual behavior and what behaviors they are learning from these sources of education. Students gain knowledge of contraceptives and contraceptive use from their family, peers, media, and their school sexual health education program. This project will assess what they are learning from each source of sexual education and examine how it is translating into their sexual behavior.

I am very excited about my topic. I wanted to incorporate my two interests of education and public health and am very pleased with my proposed study. I have never studied the topic of sexual education before but I became interested in sexual behavior and sexual health in Salvador after seeing some very provocative condom campaigns during and after carnival that would never be on huge billboards in the states. Brazil’s plan of attack on sexual health and views on sex are very different from the United States and very conflicting. The more I researched sexual education in schools I came to learn about all of the inconsistencies and conflicts within the Ministries of Health and Education, parents, and the church, resulting in very poor sexual education programs in schools.

So how am I going to answer my questions? I will perform my study in a public high school in Salvador. I will be passing out 70 questionnaires to students ages 15-18 and performing a smattering of 15 interviews with administration, teachers, and students from the school.

I know that this process will be trying but very fun. I am excited to see what I learn and whatever else comes out of this research.