SEX902 Human sexualities in politics, health administration, scientific research, and activism
- ECTS Credits:
- 5
- Responsible department:
- Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences
- Course Leader:
- Elsa Mari Almås
- Lecture Semester:
- Spring, Autumn
- Teaching language:
- English
- Duration:
- 1 term
Teaching language
EnglishRecommended prerequisites
Experience with sexual or gender issues in academic research involving sexological issues (sex and gender issues), health care, planning or organization, political or organizational work involving sexual or gender issues.
Course contents
- The Origins of the "Sexuality" Concept 19th/20th century and The Development of "Sexology" as a Scientific Field and a Professional Discipline.
- Public health and sexual health
- Sexual Orientation and gender diversity (SOGI)
- Research approaches: Survey and field work
Learning outcomes
- Be informed about the development of sexology since 19th century as a field of knowledge and research, clinical practice, and activism.
- Have an advanced understanding of the importance of contextualizing scientific and scholarly theories about common sense and vernacular knowledge about sexuality.
- Understand the logics of Sexual Health and Public Sexual Health (as different from clinical and educational approaches) and the importance to include sexual health and rights in the context of Public Health.
- Be able to analyze the political implications of concepts such as sexual health, sexual rights, and sexual justice. How can "Public sexual health" be understood and developed in society?
- Understand and analyze sources that influence the formation of norms and deviance categories concerning sexual behavior, orientation and identity.
- Understand and critically analyze the instrumentalization of binaries in ideological systems such as good/bad, normal/pathological and normal/deviant.
- Be introduced to research methods in the history of knowledge (be it religious, scientific or social) and to understand methods used in sex research.
- Understand minority activism and be able to communicate its role in challenging powerful concepts, laws and rules related to sexual and gender identity.
- Be able to produce a written memoir based on critical evaluation of scholarly sources and exploratory empirical research.
Examination requirements
The candidate must attend the course on site or by video, and fulfill the requirements concerning reading literature and tasks given during the course.
Teaching methods
The course is based on a mix of lectures, film screening, and hands-on exploratory research (outdoor observation of behavior and interview research), group exercises and library study, and open discussion between staff and students. Part of the lectures can be by video recordings. The course has compulsory teaching. The course has an expected workload for students of 135 hours. See further information in Canvas.
Evaluation
The person responsible for the course decides, in cooperation with student representative, the form of student evaluation and whether the course is to have a midway or end of course evaluation in accordance with the quality system for education, chapter 4.1.
Admission Requirement if given as Single Standing Module
Bachelor´s degree in health politics, law, social sciences, psychology, education, nursing or equivalent.
Assessment methods and criteria
An individual written home exam with a duration of five days. Graded character (A-F). See further information in Canvas.