Sexualidade e educação sexual de pessoas com deficiência intelectual: um programa de ensino para professores

Abstract

It can be said that sexuality is still a controversial topic, which causes difficulties for those who face this issue on a daily basis, such as teachers, for example. When it comes to teachers of young people with intellectual disabilities (ID), the challenge is even greater. In this sense, studies state that the result of the sexuality/ID relationship may not be positive due to the sum of difficulties faced by teachers and families, and that many behaviors considered inappropriate that these people exhibit are the result of education or lack of sexual education. Therefore, the main objective of this research was to develop, implement and evaluate a training program in sexual education for special education teachers on sexuality and sexual education for students with ID, in order to investigate the difficulties and facilities in dealing with this subject in everyday practice. Thus, qualitative data collection and analysis methods were used. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 teachers from a special school, based on a script prepared by the author, which addressed the themes of sexuality, sexual education, sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities, sexual affective relationships of people with intellectual disabilities and relationships of gender. The data was systematized and soon after, a teaching program was drawn up, which had as its central theme “Sexuality and Sexual Education for Young People with Intellectual Disabilities”. The teachers participating in the teaching program were the same teachers participating in the interview. Furthermore, the group was led by the focus group and had 05 meetings/themes, which took place once a week. These meetings had a theoretical part carried out by the researcher and moments in which the participants' difficulties were addressed through group discussions. Finally, the teachers carried out activities in class with the students and were later described and analyzed with a view to verifying the effects of the teaching program. The data collected in the pre-intervention interviews, in the intervention course and in the activities carried out by post-intervention teachers, were systematized and qualitatively analyzed. To achieve this, Discourse Analysis procedures and techniques were used, especially as they encompass analysis techniques that aim to be a bridge between scientific knowledge and common sense, aiming to reconstitute collective thinking in the face of various themes. The results indicate that in the pre-intervention interviews, the majority of teachers did not receive training on this topic during their undergraduate studies. Among those who stated that they had obtained some instruction about sexual education, it was found that this was of a strictly biological nature with a focus on anatomical and physiological characteristics. Furthermore, prejudices and myths were noted regarding this issue mainly because they do not believe that they can enjoy safe and pleasurable sexuality in a responsible and autonomous way because they have ID, indicating that people with ID are qualitatively different from people who do not have disabilities and who do not have the same right to experience their sexuality as the rest of us, with the need to always be supervised by their family. After the intervention carried out through the teaching program, it was possible to demonstrate that training in sexual education is a strategy that favors personal reflection on the topic, as well as a review of one's own values, feelings, taboos and prejudices, strengthening the teacher's the importance of sexual education work in the school space.