Extract

The articles collected in this Policy Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education began life as papers presented at a 2021 online conference entitled Relationships and Sex Education: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives. Co-sponsored by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain and the History of Education Society UK, the conference brought together an international group of philosophers, historians and social scientists to consider the aims, challenges and possibilities of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools. The conference was prompted by the introduction of compulsory RSE in English secondary schools, and compulsory Relationships Education in English primary schools, in September 2020. Our original plan was to hold an in-person conference at the University of Birmingham in June 2020, shortly before the new statutory requirements came into force, but COVID-19 delayed us by a year and pushed the event online. In the end, the virtual format worked in our favour: it facilitated the participation of many more overseas speakers and attendees than would have been able to travel in person to Birmingham. In particular, it enabled us to secure all five of our first-choice keynote speakers: David Archard (Queen's University, Belfast), Cris Mayo (University of Vermont), Lisa Andersen (Juilliard, New York), Lauren Bialystok (University of Toronto) and Jonathan Zimmerman (University of Pennsylvania).

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