Bridging the Gap: Canadian Parents’ barriers and concerns in delivering sexuality education – A qualitative study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Parents play a pivotal role in delivering comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to their children. While school-based programs have expanded in many settings, parents often face cultural, informational, and emotional barriers in engaging in open discussions about sexual health. These challenges are intensified in diverse societies such as Canada, where cultural values and personal beliefs vary widely. Despite the growing recognition of parental involvement in CSE, limited research has explored Canadian parents' perspectives on sexuality education, particularly in multicultural contexts. METHODS: We employed a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to examine the experiences, beliefs, and barriers Canadian parents face in providing sexuality education. Six virtual focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with 30 parents of children aged 0-18 years. Participants were recruited through purposeful and snowball sampling to ensure diverse representation. Data was analyzed using inductive thematic analysis to identify key themes related to parents' understanding, approaches, and needs regarding sexuality education. RESULTS: Three major themes emerged (1) The holistic nature of sexuality education, emphasizing the importance of emotional, psychological, and social aspects alongside biology; (2) Timing and approaches, revealing uncertainty around when and how to initiate these conversations and a preference for child-led, ongoing dialogue; and (3) Influences of society, media, and schools, highlighting external factors shaping children's understanding and parents' concerns over misinformation and inconsistent educational content. Parents also reported difficulties accessing age-appropriate, culturally relevant, and accessible educational resources. CONCLUSION: Canadian parents face multifaceted challenges in navigating sexuality education, shaped by cultural taboos, lack of resources, and limited confidence in initiating these discussions. The findings underline the need for inclusive, parent-focused resources, training, and policies that support caregivers in delivering accurate and age-appropriate sexuality education. Strengthening partnerships between families, schools, and healthcare systems is essential to bridge knowledge gaps and promote healthy sexual development in youth.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.021 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".