Conference Program

Education in Relational, Affective and Sexual Life (EVRAS) occupies a central place in educational policies aimed at promoting the sexual health of children and young people in French-speaking Belgium. Beyond its explicit goals, however, EVRAS also constitutes a public action instrument through which normativities of gender and sexuality are formulated, materialized, and transmitted. In light of this, this contribution offers a theorical perspective examining how EVRAS participates in the processes of gender political socialization among students, the ways in which young people internalize a critical relationship to gender relations and learn, negotiate, or contest the power structures inherent in them. Drawing on the concept of the inequality regime (Acker, 2006) – an analytical approach to the interrelated practices and meanings that sustain gender, class, and other social relations within organizations – this review also considers the links between inequalities present in the school institution and students’ gender political socialization.

The first part of the presentation discusses the foundations of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), defined by UNESCO (2018) as “a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality.” This definition will be contrasted with the orientations specific to the French-speaking Belgian context, focusing on the gender and sexuality normativities prescribed in EVRAS policy texts. This section will also address the controversies surrounding EVRAS, particularly opposition expressed by some parents who view it as a threat to their educational authority or to the values they wish to transmit. These reactions illustrate the plurality of spheres contributing to the gender socialization of young people and shed light on conflicts of legitimacy between family and school.

The second part examines how, in a context where EVRAS crystallizes tensions between familial prescriptions, school expectations, and broader social norms, gender socialization unfolds across its various spheres: family, school, peer groups, and youth sociability networks. Particular attention will be paid to individuals’ agency in relation to norms, as well as to the school context according to schools’ inequality regimes, in order to illuminate the effects of EVRAS on the gender political socialization of young people. The aim is to understand the conditions under which EVRAS may support the emergence of a critical stance toward gender relations or, conversely, contribute to the reproduction of gendered norms already present in young people's social environments. The concepts of conscientization (understanding the world) and conflictualization (taking a stand) (Druez & Durand, 2023) will provide a theoretical contribution for analysing how different postures shape young people’s relationship to gender inequalities.