Secondary Education and Class Stratification: Understanding the Hierarchy of Sexuality Education in a Chinese Vocational High School

The discussion of sexuality education has a long history in China since the onset of modernisation in the early 20th century. Sexuality education has also existed in China’s educational system for a long time but in various forms. However, the discussions regarding students’ experiences and the influence of social stratification in China’s particular social context are still limited. From March to September 2019, the author visited an academic high school (pugao) and a vocational high school (zhigao) in Tianjin, China, to gain first-hand data to understand young people’s sexuality education experiences. In this paper, the author specifically paid attention to China’s social class, a rarely discussed topic in China’s society. She also tried to listen to the voices of young people and schoolteachers and help them to be heard. By presenting the insights from schoolteachers, students, as well as the materials from a nationally approved textbook, the author conducted a thematic analysis about how social class influences young people’s sexuality education experiences in secondary education in China.