The Quilted Collage: Exploring barriers and creating supports to facilitating transformative sex education in Halifax, Nova Scotia
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Date
2025-07
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
This research explores sex educators' experiences with and views on the barriers and supports to facilitating transformative sex education in the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE). Employing participatory visual research through the quilted collaging method, the study encourages solidarity and reflection among sex educators, exploring their beliefs, values, and experiences. The research draws on Black feminist theory, critical queer theory, crip theory, and abolitionism to reveal how cisheteronormativity, white supremacy, settler colonialism, sexism, and ableism shape these barriers and supports. Through co-analysis, the study highlights how systems of power perpetuate oppression in sex education spaces, stressing the potential of joy and pleasure as transformative tools to disrupt these oppressive practices. Ultimately, the thesis argues that HRCE’s sex education, rooted in colonial and Eurocentric power, can be reshaped by centring joy and pleasure, especially from marginalized perspectives.