While sex-ed is commonplace in schools, sexuality education is almost totally lacking.

The topic of sexuality in schools continues to prompt contestation and controversy, but one Australian researcher wants to start breaking down the walls.

Monash University Associate Professor Mary Lou Rasmussen believes that the tenuous nature of sexuality education may be associated with the perception of it as hostile towards religion.

In an upcoming lecture, Professor Rasmussen says she will draw attention to key assumptions that frame what is dubbed “progressive sexuality education”.

She says progressive sexuality education needs to evidence based; it needs to promote sexual autonomy in order to ensure that young people are able to act as self-governing sexual subjects.

Appropriate teaching is responsible for the cultivation of tolerance of sexual and gender diversity, Rasmussen says, noting that public education often precludes discussion of the intersections between faith, religion and morality.

“Sexuality education is not neutral,” Professor Rasmussen says.

“The constitution of progressive sexuality education as neutral effectively plays into the hands of religious and political conservatives who seek to constitute sexuality education and public schooling as entirely devoid of religion, values and morality.

“How might dropping the progressive tag, and thinking differently about the relationship between faith, cultural difference and sexuality - change contemporary imaginings of sexuality education?”

The ideas will be discussed further at an upcoming session of the Monash Dean's Lecture Series.