By tracing developments from the early 1900s onward, the researchers demonstrate how the teaching has been directed at gendered bodies associated with different types of risks.

The study, conducted by Anne-Li Lindgren at Stockholm University and Sara Backman Prytz at Uppsala University, points out that the state has used risk as a central tool to legitimize sex education in schools. At the same time, important knowledge about anatomy related to sexual pleasure—such as visual descriptions of the clitoris and the glans—has consistently been excluded from national guidelines.

Despite changes over time, today’s sex education remains strongly health-oriented. The researchers argue that health-promoting perspectives have both shaped and limited how children’s and young people’s sexuality may be described and understood in the classroom.

Link to the article:

doi.org/10.1177/20436106251398505
Lindgren, A.-L., & Prytz, S. B. (2026). Body and risk: Health promotion in Swedish school sex education 1900–2020s. Global Studies of Childhood, 0(0).