L’éducation à la sexualité : conceptions d’enseignants et futurs enseignants de trois pays maghrébins (Tunisie, Maroc, Algérie)

Nowadays, sex education takes part in the development of the citizenship values and it contributes to public health. It participates not only to the biological and medical dimensions, but also to the psychological and social dimensions. Teachers play a key role in the sexual health education . This paper analyses the teachers’ and future teachers' conceptions about sex education from three Maghreb countries: Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. Data were obtained from a questionnaire elaborated and validated in the European BIOHEAD-Citizen research project. Responses were received from 1306 teachers from the three countries who completed the questionnaire. The multivariate statistical analyses employed in the present study permit us to identify important differences and some convergences between the three countries. This analysis show also significant correlations between teachers’ conceptions about sex education and their religious and political opinions. The teacher’s conceptions and values about sex education (for example abortion or homosexuals' rights) vary significantly from country to country but they also vary according to religious beliefs and the level of religious practice. Other differences are related to the age at which certain topics of sexual education should be taught for the first time at school by teachers and/or external specialists. The discussion compares these results to those obtained in France from the same questionnaire, showing homogeneity of the three countries, beyond their differences. Finally, the implications of these findings for teachers training and the issues for implementing the most effective sex education in the three countries were discussed.