Narratives around teaching sexuality: learning from school teachers’ experiences in Uraba, Colombia

The purpose of this research is to understand how teachers' commitment to teaching sexuality emerges in adverse contexts such as Urabá in Colombia. For this purpose, I analyzed the narratives and reflections of a group of school teachers about their life trajectories, dynamics, and roles around sexuality education in their schools. These experiences were analyzed from a socio-historical perspective of sexuality, allowing us to understand the teaching of sexuality from an approach of embodied knowledge that gives place to body and emotions as a source of knowledge and positioning. These reflections were approached from an intersectional analysis that situates these experiences according to diversities and differences. Through in-depth interviews with a group of teachers trained in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights by a local NGO, I explored their motivations, challenges, and roles in teaching sexuality in their educational communities. The findings expose that personal experiences as embodied knowledge mobilize teachers' motivations to train in sexuality and to lead pedagogical projects. Likewise, it reveals a leadership to challenge the difficulties and finger-pointing that they experience within their goal of teaching sexuality.