Teaching philosophies guiding sexuality instruction in US colleges and universities

ABSTRACTTeaching philosophies are central to the approach of pedagogical strategies but there has been little examination of discipline-specific teaching philosophies. This study addresses a significant gap in the literature by discussing the teaching philosophies of 122 instructors of sexuality courses. Sexuality education is unique compared to most disciplines due to the personal nature of the content, thus being more difficult for students and instructors to distance themselves from the course content. The teaching philosophies in this study conveyed two overarching approaches to sexuality instruction: the instructor’s perspective of the course and the approach of the sexuality instruction. Although teaching philosophies typically inform one’s practice of teaching and course content, this study proposes that sexuality education is intrinsically different than other areas of instruction despite the interdisciplinary backgrounds of college instructors.