As it indicates the socially acceptable expression of sexuality, a society's sex education reflects its choices in terms of social organization of sexuality. The purpose of this thesis consists in a sociohistorical (from the beginning of the 20th Century to our times) and sociocultural comparative analysis of sex education methods and theories in France and in Sweden, in order to identify the social conceptions of gender and sexuality that they convey. While sex education still remains today, in Sweden and in France, basically ungeneralized and widely reliant on individual will, the methods used in Sweden turns out more structured and supported than they are in France. The analysis of the content of numerous sex education media (official material and various illustrated and written publications) in addition to interviews with resource people, will allow us to define the characteristics of both countries in this particular field : as Sweden started to integrate a reflection on gender in its sex education, it is far from being the case in France. The problematization of heteronormativity is furthermore non-existent in France's take on sex education, while it's slowly turning up in official texts in Sweden, under the impulse of associations and academics. Yet, in the absence of any critical reflection on gender and heteronormativity - observed in France and, in a lesser way in Sweden - the conception of sexuality spread about by sex education is biologizing (focusing on reproduction), associating sex with being in love (norm of the couple and love), negative (focusing on risks), differentialist (men and women presented as complementary) and heteronormative. Parts of the analysis will focus on alternative methods, inclusive pedagogy and norm-critical pedagogy, both developed in Sweden and implemented in the field of sex education.
