Faith-Sensitive RSE and Catholic Schooling: An Educational Goods Approach

This chapter argues that Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) needs to be reconfigured from being faith-orientated to be being faith-sensitive. In Catholic education, RSE can legitimately be sensitive to insights and beliefs drawn from a Catholic perspective, but it cannot be orientated to handing these on as the true or definitive way of understanding RSE. It is explained that there are complex issues at stake because Catholic education is primarily justified in terms of parental rights. This means there is an inherent risk of always giving primacy to the rights of the parents over and above those of the child. Using and ‘educational goods approach’ it is argued that, when it comes to RSE (especially in state funded Catholic schools), there is no justification for using this of the curriculum to privilege and promote Catholic belief about sex and relationships.