History and Citizenship

TOPIC AREA 5:  INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY 

Sub-Topic Area 7:  Values, Attitude and Sources of Sexual Learning Unit 

16:  Family and personal values 

Activity 16.1

 Use a dictionary or the internet to find the meanings of the following words: 

• Values 

• Gender 

• Sexuality 

• Reproductive health

Definition of values 

These are principles or standards of behaviour. They are one’s judgment of what is important in life. Values also refer to important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture. These ideals determine what is good or bad, desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person’s behaviour and attitude. They serve as broad guidelines in all situations. There are various types of values namely:

(i) Ethical or moral values 

(ii) Doctrinal or ideological (religious, political) value 

(iii) Social values 

(iv) Aesthetic value

Activity 16.2 

In Rwanda, every school has the following: 

• Vision statement 

• Mission statement 

• School motto 

(a) Write down the motto, vision and mission statements of your school. 

(b) Pick out the values that the above statements promote.

You must have realised that school motto, vision and mission statements have a meaning. They are not written just for the sake of writing. They promote some very important values. 

Sources of values 

• Genetics: Significant portion of our value system is genetically determined. Genes are responsible for a part of our value system. The value system could be altered due to environmental factors. 

• Culture: Certain values are reinforced by culture. Certain cultures consider values such as achievements, peace, cooperation, unity, equity and democracy desirable. 

• Parents (family):  Values are established in our families through parents. Parents mould and instill a certain sense of values in their children. This will help the kids to cope with future challenges. 

• Friends and peers: Through friends and peers, many people acquire values. Some acquire negative values while the others acquire constructive values to brighten their future. 

• School: Through informal and formal education, a good number of people acquire values. We learn a lot of things at school as we get knowledge and skills. This is a source of values to the majority. Good schools instill constructive ideas to students as a sense of direction. 

• Media/press: Through newspapers, magazines, internet, radios, television and other relevant media, people acquire values. They admire and adopt values through role models in the media. 

• Other value systems: Our value system may get altered as we grow up and get exposed to other value systems. For example, being recruited into the army or police force may change our past existing value systems. 

Sources of sexual learning

 Sexual learning refers to instruction on issues relating to human sexuality. The issues include human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual activity, reproductive health and emotional relations. Other issues are reproductive rights and responsibilities, sexual abstinence and birth controls. Sexual learning can be done informally or formally. 

1. Informal  sources

 Sexual learning may be taught informally. Someone can receive information from a conversation with a parent, friends, religious leader, or through the media. It may also be delivered through sex self-help authors, sex columnists or sex education websites.

Activity 16.3 

1. (a)  Explain how sex education was taught in the traditional Rwandan society. 

(b) How is it taught today?

Sexual learning must be introduced to children at an early age so as to help them manage body changes during adolescence. 

2. Formal sources

Formal sexual learning occurs when schools or health care providers offer sex education lessons. Sexual learning teaches the young persons what they should know about their personal conduct. It also teaches them how to relate with others, especially members of the opposite sex. It is also necessary to prepare the young for the tasks ahead.

Sometimes sexual learning is taught as a full course as part of the curriculum. It is taught in junior high schools and senior high schools. 

Definition of gender 

Gender 

Gender refers to either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated by social and cultural roles and behaviour. It is impossible to define gender as ‘sex’. The term sex can be used when differentiating male creatures from female ones biologically. The concept of gender is primarily applied to human beings and has additional connotations. 

Social construction of gender

Social construction refers to how the society groups people and how it privileges certain groups over others. The social construction of gender begins with the assignment to a sex category to babies. It is done on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. 

When a baby is born, the doctor first looks at the baby’s genitalia. He or she does this in order to determine whether it is a boy or a girl. This is the beginning of the gender process of social construction.

After children have been classified as boys or girls, parents become part of this societal process. They start dressing them with different clothes and colours to identify their gender.

As children grow up, they start learning how they are supposed to behave. They observe and imitate the people of the same gender as them. Girls act as their mothers and boys as their fathers. Each gender is expected to dress and act in a certain way. However, this behaviour leads to stereotypes. 

Concepts of human rights related to sexual and reproductive health 

(a) Sexual health 

Sexual health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality. It requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships. Sexual health is about the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences. The sexual relationships should be free of coercion, discrimination and violence. 

Sexual rights

The struggle for sexual rights includes and focuses on sexual pleasure and emotional sexual expression. At the 14th World Congress of Sexology (Hong Kong,1999), the congress adopted the universal declaration of sexual rights. This includes the following sexual rights: 

(i) The right to sexual freedom 

(ii) The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of sexual body 

(iii) The right to sexual privacy 

(iv) The right to sexual equity 

(v) The right to sexual pleasure 

(vi) The right to emotional sexual expression 

(vii) The right to sexually associate freely 

(viii) The right to make free and responsible reproductive choices 

(ix) The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry 

(x) The right to comprehensive sexuality education 

(xi) The right to sexual health care

(b) Reproductive health 

Reproductive health implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safer sex life. It also implies that they have the capability to reproduce. They also have the freedom to decide when and how often to do so. One interpretation of this implies that men and women ought to be informed. They should have access to safe, effective affordable and acceptable methods of birth control. They should also have access to appropriate health care services of sexual and reproductive medicine. 

Health education programmes should be implemented. They stress on the importance of women going through pregnancy and childbirth safely. Health education provides couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant. 

Reproductive rights 

Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines reproductive rights as follows:

“Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”

Revision questions  

1. Define the term ‘values’.

 2. Mention various sources of values. 

3. Explain what is meant by sexual ‘learning.’ 

4. Clearly explain the sources of sexual learning. 

5. Explain the meanings of: 

(a)  Sexual health 

(b) Reproductive health 

6. State at least ten sexual rights.