Moral Differences and Social Borders. The Limits of Inclusion in Catholic School’s Sexual Education in Santiago

Abstract

In elitist Catholic schools, sex education attempts to regulate intimacy and personal character, in order to shape an individual capable of guiding himself and his sexuality towards an ethical project. In this article, we will examine the result of a qualitative research carried out in 16 Catholic establishments in the city of Santiago. From 53 interviews with counselors and psychologists in charge of sexual education, two focus groups that convened 23 adolescents from these schools and ethnographic observations in different training activities of such establishments, a new analysis of the notion of inclusion is proposed. In this case, we are not focused on the sexual orientation of the subjects - as schools usually do, representing the idea of sexual diversity- but instead, we will observe the construction of the otherness associated to sexual education. As a result, the limits that subjective experience imposes on moral discussion about sexuality become evident. In these schools, “diversity” is still confined to share the same socioeconomic position. The inclusion of certain invisible alterities would probably evidence the contingent nature of sex education.