Young Women, Class and Gendered Heterosexuality: The Implication of Educational Aspirations and Social Networks for Sex Education Messages

Abstract

This article reports findings from an ESRC-funded investigation into the interface between Sex and Relationship Education (hereafter SRE) and young people’s experiences as mediated by the interconnections of class, gender and heterosexuality. The article focuses on how young women’s gendered heterosexual practices, alongside educational aspirations, are given meaning by the values embedded in classed circumstances, social networks and relationships. Developing a ‘relational’ approach, the conceptual framework combines different levels of analysis and complicates the idea of a simple workingclass/middle-class dichotomy. The empirical data are drawn from one-to-one interviews and focus groups with 69 young people, aged 15 to 21 years old, although only women’s narratives are presented. I argue that understanding how young people draw on normative discourses about gendered heterosexuality, as well as class-related practices and aspirations as embedded in particular social networks, provides greater insight into theorizing the regulation of sexual identities as linked to SRE messages.