In recent years, the French National Education system has put considerable emphasis on health education, and notably on sex education, in redefining the missions of its employees. However changing policy and establishing new directives is not always enough to generate new actions. This study attempts to improve our understanding of the representations and the teaching practices of stakeholders involved in sex education, and to identify factors impeding the implementation of sex education in 8th and 9th grade pupils of SEGPA classes, i.e. classes adapted for children with learning disabilities in middle-schools. Questionnaires and interviews were applied to school medical staff, to members of the direction, and to SEGPA teachers, the sex education contents textbooks were analysed, and a questionnaire was applied to more than 250 8th and 9th grade pupils of SEGPA classes. Our findings indicate that in spite of pupil expectations regarding sex education, many factors limit effective implementation of sex education : the representations that educational staff have of sex education, teaching practices centred on transmitting biophysical information while more or less neglecting the development of psychosocial competencies, the lack of training in sex education, the ineffective or non-implementation of Health and Citizenship Education Committees (CESC) in schools, and the reluctance of some educational staff to implement sex education.
